


Villa in the Sun

by BoldAsBrass



Series: Run To You [3]
Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Age Difference, Developing Relationship, Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, Sexual Content, Spies & Secret Agents, Story within a Story, Yassen Gregorovich Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-03-17 05:57:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18959266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoldAsBrass/pseuds/BoldAsBrass
Summary: When one of you is a (semi) retired assassin and the other a teenage secret agent attempting to navigate University life, then telling stories over the telephone may be the best way you have to keep in touch.Sometimes though, stories can take on a life of their own.





	1. Arrival

_The phone rings seven times before someone answers. A young man’s voice, firm but a little weary. It is Sunday evening and he was hoping, perhaps, for a quiet night in front of the television before the working week resumes. “Hello?” he says._

_“It’s me.”_

_There’s a pause before Alex says warily, “Is this line secure?”_

_“Of course.”_

_“Why are you calling?”_

_It is not most effusive of greetings but Yassen had expected some initial hesitancy and made his plans accordingly. “I wanted to say, 'Hello.'”_

_“Hello.”_

_“And I wanted to tell you a story.”_

_“A story?” A note of tension enters Alex’s voice. “About my father?”_

_“No, not that kind of story.”_

_“Oh.” Yassen can’t tell if Alex is disappointed or relieved. There’s a pause. He can hear quiet movements in the background, the sound of opening and shutting drawers. What task is keeping Alex busy so late at night when he has college in the morning? “What kind of story then?” Alex says at last._

_“A nice story. A bedtime story. About a pair of little red swimming trunks. Amongst other things.”_

_“Oh,” Alex says again, blankly. Then comprehension dawns. “Oh,_ that _kind of story.”_

_“Yes. Do you want to hear it?”_

_“I don’t know,” Alex says guardedly. Curiosity wars with caution in his voice. “What will I have to do?”_

_“Nothing.”_

_“Nothing?”_

_“Just listen,” Yassen confirms._

_“And that's all?” says Alex, sensing a catch but unable to pinpoint its source._

_“If you don’t like it you can always hang up.”_

_Alex is silent for almost a full minute as he turns this point over in his mind. Then Yassen hears the creak of bedsprings and knows curiosity has won out over better judgement for the time being. “Alright, go on.”_

 

The buzzer sounds at four o’clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day. George, the cook, is lying beneath the pergola, smoking a cigarette and occasionally wiping his brow on the damp sleeve of his greying shirt. Constantine, the chauffeur, has driven down to the island’s only town to wait for news of Andreas. Lukas, the groundsman, is taking a break from weeding until the glare of the sun diminishes and is lying in his rooms wearing earphones and half-watching a cam show with a jaded eye. Only the head of security hears the buzzer. He is a lean, blond man in his late thirties and his name is Ivan-

 

_“Ivan?” Alex interjects._

_“What’s wrong with Ivan?” Yassen wants to know._

_“Nothing, I just didn’t expect him to be called Ivan.”_

_“His name is Ivan,” Yassen says firmly. “Ivan Anatolyevich Sorokin. And he is Russian.”_

_“I’d never have guessed.”_

_Yassen pauses fractionally to mark his displeasure. “Who is telling this story?”_

_“You are,” says Alex, uncharacteristically meek._

_“Yes,” Yassen says, and continues._

Ivan is sitting in his office, a darkened room on the first floor of the main building. A laptop on his desk shows him the feeds from the CCTV cameras installed across the villa and its grounds. When he calls up the gate camera he sees a man's figure standing outside. There is no sign of a waiting car or other any vehicle which has brought him. The harsh light bleaches out the details of his features, but he is tall and almost certainly not Greek if he has walked up the dusty track from the village in the heat of the afternoon sun. The villa’s grounds are surrounded by two metre walls made of steel re-enforced concrete and there are no nearby trees to offer a softening shade. The figure shades his eyes with his hand and peers through the bars of the gate. When he realises no one is coming, he squats in the small shadow left by the gateposts, pulls a bottle from his backpack and takes a long drink. Ivan watches thoughtfully. He has not been instructed to expect guests, but it is not unheard of for Andreas, the villa’s owner, to issue impromptu invitations to young tourists when the mood strikes him. He is tempted to let whoever it is wait outside for Andreas to deal with, but if they collapse from the heat and block the gates in the meantime then it will become Ivan’s problem to solve.

With a faint grimace of annoyance, he takes a black Grach semi-automatic pistol from the top drawer of his desk and tucks it into the waistband of his trousers, adjusting his shirt so it is hidden from view. The villa’s keys already hang from a loop at his belt. He leaves his office, locking the door behind him, and passes through the shadowed rooms of the villa and into the main grounds, moving so quietly that the three Rottweilers panting in their pen barely stir at his passing.

The stranger scrambles to his feet when he notices Ivan approaching and gives a bright smile. As he draws closer, Ivan sees he is younger than he had first thought, perhaps only in his early twenties, with tanned skin, shaggy brown hair and the kind of angular features which makes Ivan think he is either English or Dutch. His outfit gives no hint of his country of origin. His clothing would not look out of place in any skate park in Europe: scruffy Converse trainers, oversized jeans, an orange Hollister T-shirt and a string of beads around his neck.

“Good afternoon,” the stranger says in halting Greek once Ivan is within earshot. “Is this Villa Santorini?”

Ivan gives a minute shrug. The Greeks have a cavalier attitude to house names - this one is known locally as the big villa on the hill which Yanni built. However, it is possible that on some faded deed lodged within a dusty filing cabinet somewhere on the mainland it has been designated the name Villa Santorini. The stranger’s smile fades and he pushes his unruly mop of hair back from his forehead revealing a pair of serious brown eyes. Seeing his face more clearly, Ivan revises his age-estimate downwards another few years. This boy is barely out of his teens.

“Does Andreas live here?” the boy asks. Ivan stares silently through the gate’s metal bars. If this unexpected guest does not know that for certain, then he has no right to be here. “Do you speak English?” the boy persists.

“Yes,” Ivan admits.

“Great!” He gives another broad smile, and switches languages with evident relief. “Andreas invited me to come and stay? I met him at a party last night. Well,” he corrects himself, “this morning, really- down at the…” Here, he gestures southwards towards the marina. “He said he had a place up here and I was welcome to visit anytime?”

His accent reveals he is English and Ivan allows himself a small moment of self-congratulation as he considers this sudden torrent of words. “Andreas is not here,” he says at last. Something about this boy annoys him. Maybe it is his constant grinning, or his messy hair, or the way his trousers flap around his legs revealing five centimetres of dusty ankle-

 

_“That’s the style,” Alex objects._

Perhaps it is the style, but in Ivan’s opinion it looks sloppy. Clothes should skim the body and not draw attention to themselves. Most likely though, it is the way he speaks. He has adopted the slight upward inflection that young native speakers sometimes use, making every sentence sound like a question. He finds it intensely grating.

“I know. He said he might have to go away on business but I was welcome to come up and to make myself at home?”

He flashes another bright smile as he finishes, but it meets with no answering warmth. Ivan simply holds out his hand. He is not paid to allow people to walk into the villa without first checking their credentials.

The boy starts. “Oh, yes. Right.” He fumbles in his jeans pocket and hands over a folded piece of paper. It is stained and a little grubby, and appears to have been used as a drink’s coaster at some point, but it is genuine: written in Andreas’s sprawling hand, dated with the day’s date and with their agreed code jotted in the top left-hand corner. It says to give the boy a room for the night and that Andreas will be along in the morning. “Is everything okay?” he adds when Ivan remains silent.

Ivan tucks the paper into his pocket and considers. Everything seems in order but something still puzzles him. Andreas likes his companions young, it’s true, and male, and dark-eyed. But his preferences run to the smooth-limbed and languorous. This visitor, with his angular face and the dusting of stubble on his jaw, does not quite fit into that mould. It is as though someone has been given a checklist of Andreas’s preferences and provided something right in its particulars, but wrong in its execution. The boy leans one shoulder against the gate post and waits for his decision patiently. Ivan is a cautious man, which is why he has a Grach tucked into the back of his trousers. But he is also a curious one, and life at the villa has not been particularly challenging these last few months. If this guest has been sent by Andreas, then there is nothing to be concerned about. If he has not, then Ivan thinks he would like to know a little more. He presses a button on his key fob and the gates swing open, moving silently despite their size.

“Come with me,” he says.

 

_“What does he look like this Yassen-”_

_“Ivan,” Yassen corrects._

_“-Ivan Sorokin?”_

_“I told you: blond, slim, late thirties.”_

_“Yes, but what else?”_

_“Does it matter?”_

_A grumble of annoyance. “You spent long enough describing the English guy.”_

_“Short hair,” says Yassen conceding the point. “Blue eyes. Medium height, maybe one seventy-five.”_

_“What does he wear?”_

_“Dark chinos. Unbranded,” he adds before Alex can ask. “A black polo shirt. Wayfarer sunglasses. Desert boots.”_

_“Don’t his feet get sweaty?”_

_“No.”_

_“Is he handsome?”_

_Yassen gives this question more serious consideration. “He’s good-looking enough that strangers are nice to him but not so attractive he draws undue attention,” he says at last._

_“In other words, yes,” Alex says dryly._

_Alone in his apartment Yassen runs a complacent hand over hair which is still blond and thick, only a few silver strands dusting the temples. “He is not bad for his age,” he allows._

He leads the way along the drive towards the villa and the boy slouches after him. The front of the building does not present an inviting aspect to the newly arrived guest, nor is it meant to. The main door is made of steel plate and to each side, stark white walls rise from the ground with no shrubs or planting to soften their hard lines. The ground floor has no windows, and only the occasional small aperture, covered by a steel shutter, punctuates the upper level. They make the villa look more like a secure compound than a luxury holiday home, and in many ways it is.

Andreas is not part of the Greek mafia, his family made their fortune legitimately in the import-export business, but he moves in the same circles, he goes to the same parties, and over the years he has provided a number of favours which have required a substantial investment in his personal security. His business is spread across multiple warehouses in Patras. It trades as a regular import-and-export operation, bringing in goods from Italy and Western Europe, but these days also providing storage units for contraband goods at a charge of fifteen percent. Andreas has no need for the money but he enjoys the  _cachet_ of associating with the criminal elite. It is as though, Ivan thinks, having been born into a life of ease, he must turn to ever-more dangerous pastimes to escape the tedium of his gilded existence.

“I’m Tommy, by the way,” the boy says as Ivan pauses to enter the security code to the main door.

Tommy? Ivan frowns inwardly. Why would anyone chose to call themselves that? Tommy is a slang term for a type of British soldier, canon-fodder, the wide-eyed young men sent to die in the Belgian trenches during the Great World Patriotic War. But in fairness, it is an old reference. Probably the boy doesn’t know it. Ivan only knows it himself because-

 

_Yassen pauses, he only knows it himself because John Rider had mentioned it once. And Yassen, being young and impressionable at the time, had absorbed every word like a sponge. Even now, twenty years later, the memories still emerge to surprise him._

_“Because why?” Alex prompts._

_“Because he has read a lot of books about war,” Yassen says and leaves it at that_.

 

“Oh,” Ivan says. He makes no effort to retain the information. He cannot be expected to remember the names of all of Andreas’s guests. Besides, he rarely uses real names. It is not a wise habit in his line of work; it opens a door into people’s lives which cannot be easily shut. Privately, he dubs the boy ‘English’ and, indeed, there is something very English about his angular face and eager, gawky demeanour. “Where are you from?”

“The UK.”

“Yes,” says Ivan. Obviously. “Which part?”

“Southampton.”

“Not London?” he asks as the keypad beeps and turns green.

Another grin. “Not everyone from the UK is from London, you know.”

“I know that,” says Ivan, irked. He is not some village idiot. Not everyone from the UK is from London and knows the Queen, just as not everyone from Russia is from Moscow and in the Mafia. That is not why he asked. The boy speaks with an unremarkable English accent but running beneath it, like the Thames, he thought he had detected the long, elided vowels of the capital city.

“What’s your name?” English asks in a conciliatory tone.

He pauses, before unhooking the bunch of keys from his belt loop. Visitors do not normally concern themselves with the names of the villa’s staff. “Ivan,” he admits.

“Do you work here, Ivan?”

The door has three locks. He deals with them all before dignifying that with an answer. “Yes.”

“What do you do?”

“I look after the villa.”

“You’re the housekeeper?” English asks. Ivan is not sure if he is being serious or employing the famed British sense of humour. The British are always joking about. They labour under the misapprehension that it makes them charming. It does not, in Ivan’s view. It makes them annoying.

“I am responsible for security,” he says at last. “Follow me, please.” And he indicates the shadowed lobby before them.

 

* * *

 

The villa stands on a hillside above the sea. It is a two storey, U-shaped building, built to a design which has remained unchanged since the dawn of Greek civilisation. On the ground floor, there is a large kitchen, several marble-floored reception rooms and a cavernous games room. Upstairs are the bedrooms. The south wing is for staff, the longest middle wing is for guests and the coolest north wing contains Andreas’s private quarters.

All this Ivan explains in as few words as possible, as he escorts English upstairs. “And this my office,” he says as they reach the landing. He had chosen it deliberately. No one enters or leaves the upper storey without passing his door. “Down here, the staff rooms.”

“So that’s you…”

“George, the cook, Lukas, Yiannis, when he is here.” Yiannis is Andreas’s PA, a small, nervous man, whose wide eyes and twitching nose remind Ivan of a rabbit. He accompanies Andreas everywhere, undoubtedly he would have been at the previous night’s party, but English shows no sign of recognition at the name. After a moment, Ivan continues, “And along here the guest rooms. Pick whichever you like.”

The guest rooms face the sea, five doors lining one wall of the corridor. The facing wall acts as a gallery for a dozen or so of Andreas’s more coy photographs. They are much of a kind: a series of doe-eyed young men, decked in laurels and jewels and artistically slipping robes. They are not to Ivan’s taste, but he admits they serve a useful purpose in illustrating to potential guests the terms of their stay. English , however, observes the pictures without comment or apparent alarm. He speaks only when they reach the end of the corridor. Here, they find another steel door, outward opening with security hinges and a palm reader set into its surface. Its hi-tech, sleek lines and glowing screen sit incongruously amidst the villa’s white-washed walls and wooden floorboards. It resembles the door to a bank vault and indeed was installed to a similar specification.

“What’s through there?”

“Andreas’s apartment.”

“Oh.”

“And photography studio,” Ivan adds deliberately, so there can be no mistake.

“Right.” The boy’s gaze meets his. Does he blush? It is difficult to tell through the layer of dust on his skin. The door is a new one. A German firm had designed and fitted it only a few months ago under Ivan's personal supervision. Previously, there had been a wooden door with a single Yale lock, as impenetrable a sheet of paper to anyone with basic infiltration training. Now the door opens only to Andreas’s hand. Not even Ivan has the over-ride code. “Have you heard anything from him?”

Ivan shrugs. Andreas keeps his own timetable. It is not unusual for him to be out of contact for days at a time. “Yiannis will call once they arrive at the marina.”

They retrace their steps along the corridor. English enters a room, apparently at random, not the one closest to Andreas’s apartment but the next along. It is the room which Ivan would have chosen given the option. The shutters are open and reveal a small balcony with an uninterrupted view of the sea. The walls are white, and the floor bare terracotta tiles but the sunshine, the turquoise bed cover and the pictures of Greek landscapes dotted about the walls give it a rustic charm.

“Can I have this one?”

“Yes.”

“Great stuff.”

Great stuff? What stuff? The expression is unfamiliar to him, but it is probably unimportant. Just some phatic expression intended to convey vague approval. English drops his pack on the bed and walks onto the balcony. The terrace below is the villa’s main glory. A shaded colonnade runs beneath all three wings and in its centre, a twenty-metre pool sparkles in the sunshine. The window faces due west and provides a panoramic view of the sea. Darkly wooded hills to either side of the villa fall to the water’s edge, cupping the tranquil bay between them. A low wall at the far end of the terrace provides the only barrier to the eye. Ideally, there would be a guard rail running along top, but Andreas refuses to install one, claiming it would spoil the view.

“Nice,” English says but he is not looking out at the sea, he is looking to the right, towards Andreas’s apartment. When Ivan had first arrived at the villa, a scrambling scarlet bougainvillea had covered the walls, filling the courtyard with colour and home to a host of indignant chattering sparrows. Chopping it down had been his first order, although the cleaning women protested and Lukas had looked mulish. The shrub’s spreading branches had been sturdy enough to bear the weight of a light man and Ivan had proved it by scaling on to the roof in under ten seconds. After that, Andreas had sent Lukas to get an axe. Now, nothing surrounds his windows except gleaming steel shutters and a featureless expanse of white concrete.

“Yes.” Now the boy has taken off his pack Ivan can see the back of his T-shirt is dark with sweat. He hopes he is not one of those teenagers who needs encouragement to wash. There have been one or two of those in his time and he had not enjoyed their visits. “If you want to shower, there are spare toiletries in the cupboard at the top of the stairs.”

English runs an absent hand through his mop of damp curls. “Yeah, I probably should.” As he lifts his arm, the loose sleeve of his T-shirt gapes open. Ivan has a brief impression of a scroll of paler skin across the ribcage, a patch of tawny hair beneath the arm, and then moment is gone.

“Dinner is at nine,” he says. “I will tell George you’re here.” And he retreats on silent feet before he can be forced into further chit-chat.

 

* * *

 

Ivan’s office is a sparsely furnished room containing his desk, a chair and a low bunk where he often sleeps. Most of one wall is taken up by a bank of screens which show images from cameras placed around the villa. They cover every room other than Andreas's private quarters, and this, Ivan's office. A computer server sits in one corner, humming quietly to itself. The room’s shutters are closed against the heat of the day and two bladeless Dyson fans keep the temperature tolerable. Ivan replaces the Grach in its drawer, sits at his desk and calls up the surveillance feed from the second guest room. The picture is pinpoint clear. The camera is concealed within the frame of a large picture of the Temple of Hera at Agrigento which hangs on the back wall. From that vantage point he can see the bed, the doorway into the bathroom and half the balcony. English is unpacking his backpack. As Ivan watches, he pulls out a towel and wash bag and walks into the bathroom. He switches feeds in time to see him kick off his shoes and step into the small shower cubicle. The curtain is pulled closed and T-shirt and jeans appear over the rail. As a cloud of steam fogs the camera lens, Ivan leans back in his chair and considers his next move.

All his instincts tell him this is no chance encounter. Last month, three men in Armani suits had arrived at the villa with a tan briefcase for Andreas and left ten minutes later without it. Off the top of his head, Ivan can think of a half-dozen groups who might be interested in the contents of that case, from local politicians, to the joint CIA-Greek anti-terrorism task force in Athens, to shadowy transnational criminal organisations whose names are known only by rumour. He drums his fingers thoughtfully on the chair arm, gazing unseeingly at the bank of screens on the wall opposite him. The timing is suggestive but at present that is all it is. If his suspicions are correct, then it is important to know who he is dealing with. Better to observe for a while, rather than charge in blind and lose the element of surprise.

His eyes return to the laptop and he sees that while he has been deliberating, English has finished his shower and returned to the bedroom. He is lying on the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist, holding a phone before his face. It is the latest iPhone, an expensive toy for a backpacker. His thumbs race over the screen for a minute or so, never faltering, then he leans across the bed to place the phone on the bedside table. As he reaches, Ivan sees again the whorl of paler skin beneath his left arm. He leans forward, but English has already rolled onto his stomach and the opportunity has passed. He watches for another fifteen minutes, but the boy is either sleeping, or doing a very good impression of it.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day passes uneventfully. At seven, Ivan goes to tell George they have an unexpected guest. The Greek greets the news with a philosophical shrug. He has worked for Andreas for twenty years and is used to his foibles. As is his habit, Ivan has his meal sent up on a tray and works into the relative cool of the night, glancing occasionally at the bank of monitors to confirm all is well. It is almost midnight and he is completing his final checks when he notices with a frown that the bed in the second bedroom is empty. He flips rapidly through the camera feeds only to find English is not in in the bathroom, the landing, the stairwell or the lobby. Ivan is not a man given to extremes of emotion, but his fingers are a blur as they flicker over laptop’s keyboard, pulling up a plan of the villa. However, his concerns appear unfounded. All the camera indicators glow green, none have been tampered with and Andreas’s apartment is secure.

Relaxing slightly, he returns to the cameras and undertakes a second, more thorough, search. This time he finds what he is looking for. English is standing on the terrace, half-hidden in the shadows below the colonnade, almost directly beneath where Ivan is now sitting. The camera angle does not give a good view of his face, but he is looking towards the north wing, Andreas’s rooms, and there is something in his hand. Ivan takes out the Grach and descends swiftly through the darkened villa. The door on to the terrace is half-open. Outside, it is surprisingly bright. The moon has set but the stars are all around them, and the Milky Way stretches across the sky like a string of pearls bathing the terrace in a pale, almost shadowless, light.

He pauses at the archway. “Is something the matter?” The Grach is in his hand, hidden from sight behind the door frame, heavy with potential.

English turns at the words. Ivan thinks he sees a look of surprise cross his face, but it is gone so quickly he is almost convinced he has imagined it. When the boy speaks his voice is low and husky with sleep. “I was looking for a water cooler. I didn’t know if the tap water was safe to drink.”

He raises his hand and Ivan sees something flash in the starlight. He has flicked the safety catch off and is tensing his wrist before he realises it is only a metal water bottle. English’s expression remains guileless and a little vacant. He is either a consummate actor or he has no idea how close he has come to being shot.

“Better not, it you are not used to it,” Ivan says. He pushes the safety catch back on and slides the Grach into its resting place in the small of his back, then unhooks the bunch of keys from his belt. There is a fridge just inside the kitchen door, filled with bottles of chilled water for anyone to help themselves. He takes out three and tosses one across the terrace. “Here.”

English catches the bottle and twists off the lid. “Thanks,” he says, and downs the contents in a single long swallow.

Ivan watches the muscles of his throat work and doesn’t answer at once. The steel of the Grach presses against his spine, as cold as ice and as hard as stone. He had thrown the bottle low and wide, with a deceptive lazy spin. For all his air of drowsy confusion, the boy has a good eye and quick hands. When the bottle is empty, he passes him the second. The third he keeps for himself. “Take this for the morning. You should not go outside at night on your own.”

The comment is delivered quietly, but the implied rebuke is clear. “Sorry if I disturbed you,” English says, with a meekness Ivan is not sure he believes.

“It's not me you have to worry about. After midnight, Lukas lets out the dogs.”

Now a flash of consternation does pass over the boy's face. “I haven’t heard any dogs.”

“We didn’t pick them for their bark,” Ivan says simply.

English digests this comment in silence. “Then I guess I’ll head up to bed,” he says at last.

“Yes,” Ivan says. Something is tugging at his attention but when he reaches for it, it vanishes. He lets it be for the time being, waiting until English enters the villa, then locking the door behind them and following him up the stairs.

Pale light stripes the walls of the landing, falling through the slats of the steel shutters. The pictures watch them with shadowed eyes. At the edge of his vision, Ivan catches a flicker of movement.

“Wait,” he says and takes the boy by the arm, drawing him to the window before he can speak. “You see there?”

They look though the slats at the silent grounds. As they watch, three black and tan shadows flash across the lawn, the starlight reflecting on their glossy coats. “Rottweilers,” says English, with no great enthusiasm.

“Yes.”

“I guess you didn’t pick them for their friendly personalities either?”

“Not really,” Ivan says. He releases his hold and they watch together as the dogs disappear around the corner of the villa. Then Ivan escorts him to the threshold of his room. “Sleep well,” he says, and waits in the corridor until the door clicks shut.

 

_“So, this is an actual story. With characters and a plot and stuff?”_

_“Isn’t that what I said?”_

_“I thought it was a euphemism.”_

_“For what?”_

_Alex’s voice becomes evasive. “Never mind.”_

_“Shall I go on?”_

_“I don’t know. Is there much more? It’s late.”_

_It is hardly enthusiastic agreement but Alex always takes a little warming up. It is part of his charm. “Quite a lot more, yes. I can call you again, this time next week?”_

_An ambivalent sound. “You know, normal people don’t really do phone calls anymore.”_

_“What do they do then, normal people?”_

_“I don’t know. Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik.”_

_“Do you want to do Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik?”_

_“Not really, no.”_

_“Shall I call you next week?”_

_“I might have training.”_

_“Then you won’t pick up,” Yassen says tranquilly. He doesn’t think Alex has training. He is leaving himself a get-out clause. But he is not issuing a flat refusal which means he is open to the idea._

_Another pause. Yassen holds his peace. Their bond is very fragile. He cannot test it too far._

_“Okay,” Alex says at last._

_“Okay,” Yassen repeats. “Until next week then.” And he hangs up before Alex can change his mind._


	2. The little red shorts

Breakfast is served on a long table beneath the colonnade. There is a loaf of fresh bread sitting beneath a crocheted cover; a tub of yogurt; a jar of amber-coloured honey; a few slices of cheese, already sweating in the heat; and a bowl of small black olives. A separate tray holds a thermos of hot water, a basket of tea bags and a few sachets of instant coffee. When Andreas is at the villa, breakfast is a more extravagant affair. There are eggs, sweet cheese pastries, two types of sausage, and a steaming pot of Greek coffee, but while he is away, George prefers not to add to the heat in the kitchen by lighting the stove unnecessarily.

Ivan takes a plate and helps himself to a slice of bread and an abstentious spoonful of olives. He is making a cup of tea when English appears on the terrace, blinking in the sudden bright light. He is wearing Havaianas flip flops, yesterday’s jeans, a clean, if crumpled, white T-shirt, and the same necklace. Now he has showered, Ivan can see his hair is more blond than brown, falling around his face in a mass of sun-streaked curls.

“ _Доброе утро,”_ he says when he sees Ivan.

Ivan finishes dunking his teabag before he replies. Though his expression doesn’t change, he is not best pleased by the greeting. He has worked hard to lose his Russian accent and he does not appreciate the implication that his nationality is still apparent.

 

 _“Maybe he shouldn’t call himself_ _Ivan Anatolyevich Sorokin then,” Alex mutters, but quietly enough to be ignored._

“I speak English,” he says, when his tea has reached the correct shade of teak.

English brushes a dangling strand of hair out of his eyes with a careless hand. “I know you do, but I thought I could practice my Russian.”

Ivan doesn’t dignify that suggestion with a response. His native language is rich and complex. He is not being paid to correct some adolescent’s stumbling attempts at butchering it. He takes himself to a table on the far side of the terrace instead, to eat his breakfast in peace. It is only eight in the morning but the temperature is already beginning to climb. The sun has burned away the wispy morning clouds and dried the morning dew from the sun loungers. By noon, it will be oppressively hot.

His attempts at socialising rebuffed, English turns his attention to the breakfast table. He makes himself a cheese sandwich and devours it in three quick bites before spooning out a generous helping of yogurt. Ivan selects and eats an olive, remembering with a touch of nostalgia what it was like to be a hollow-legged teen. The gnawing hole in his middle, the feeling he would never be full. Now he is older, he finds an edge of hunger is no bad thing. It sharpens his mind and keeps him alert.

English tops the yogurt with honey and perches on the edge of a sun lounger to eat it. He has scraped clean his bowl and is staring at the remaining slices of bread with hungry eyes, before Ivan has finished his olives. But, rather to Ivan’s surprise, he doesn’t help himself to the rest. Someone somewhere has taught the boy some manners, to think of others, and not to take everything for himself. Despite his reservations, Ivan approves. Politeness costs nothing but is surprisingly rare in this world. If he were a kinder man, he might suggest English finish the loaf. George and Lukas have already eaten, and Constantine lives with his wife and her family in the village down the hill, and will breakfast with them. But Ivan is not a kind man, and so he gathers up his plate and cup without speaking.

“Is it okay if I use the pool?” English asks as he enters the villa.

Ivan pauses at the threshold. Once again he has the impression that there is something different about the boy, but he does not waste his time chasing after the idea: the insight will come in due course. “If you wash first. There is a shower in the pool hut “

‘Hut’ is a generous name for the structure. It is two concrete walls abutted on to the end of the kitchen, containing a shower with a timer tap, but it serves its purpose, which is to ensure Lukas does not have to skim the pool every day.

English nods and turns his eyes to the cloudless sky. “It’s so hot already. Do you think it’s doing to storm?”

Why must the British always talk about the weather? Ivan wonders. But when he concentrates he too can feel a faint fuzz of electricity on his skin which makes him think the wind is about to turn. “Not today,” he says, “maybe tomorrow. You should swim while you can.” And he retreats to the relative cool and peace of his office before he can be pestered further.

 

* * *

 

He takes his place before the bank of silent screens in time to see English return his empty bowl to the table and make his way upstairs. He waits until he reappears on the terrace with a towel tucked under his arm, before rising to his feet and going to the boy's room. He estimates he has half an hour before English returns, but this task should take only ten minutes.

He is correct in his assessment. Searching the room is not a big job. He works with practised speed, folding and replacing everything exactly as he finds it. The only luggage is the rucksack. It contains two clean T shirts, a hooded top, a pair of crumpled chinos and a short-sleeved shirt made from a thin, drip-dry fabric. Three pairs of underwear and the orange T-shirt hanging to dry in the bathroom are the only other garments. A small washbag on the shelf above the sink contains a battery-operated toothbrush, a razor and the usual toiletries: toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, all of them Greek brands. All of them, interestingly, nearly new. Back in the bedroom he finds a passport hidden inside one of the pillowcases. It is exactly the place where Ivan would expect a young, but not entirely naïve, backpacker to hide his valuables. Were he a cynic, he might say stereotypically so. The passport reveals English’s full name is Thomas James Barber, that he is eighteen and a half years old, and that he was born in Chelsea, North London. There are five, twenty Euro notes folded inside. On the bedside table, there is a phone charger, a pair of sunglasses, an English-Greek phrasebook and a personal sailing log, conscientiously filled out with dates, weather, mileage, and navigation notes. Tucked inside the front cover is a certificate which shows Tom Barber passed the RYA Yachtmaster Coastal course in April this year. The Converse trainers sit under the bed. A wallet containing eight Euros in coins and a credit card rests inside the left shoe. And that is all there is.

Ivan sits on the bed and looks around the room. Everything is just as it should be. Nothing unusual at all. Which in itself raises an interesting question. What was such a fine, upstanding young man doing at one of Andreas’s parties? They are not the kind of occasion which a passing tourist can stumble upon unawares. He repeats his search, beginning again with the rucksack. This time his persistence is rewarded. There is a lump in the left ankle of the chinos which is not simply the folded fabric of the hem. He works it out carefully between two loose stitches, expecting to find a cling-filmed packet of pastel-coloured pills, but what he discovers is rather different. He weighs the wrap of blue, diamond-shaped tablets in his palm with a thoughtful frown. What need does an eighteen-year-old have for Viagra?

 

_“He doesn’t,” says Alex indignantly._

_“Unless he has to perform on demand,” Yassen points out._

_A pause while Alex mulls this possibility over. “Have you ever had to do that?”_

_“Perform on demand?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_Yassen considers. This is not part of the story. On the other hand, it is indicative of a growing confidence that Alex feels able to ask. “Once or twice,” he says and hopes Alex will not press further. He is not ashamed, but he has always preferred to keep sex separate from work, and the occasions where he had not…have not been memorable for positive reasons._

_Alex’s thoughts, however, have taken a different track. “Do you think my father…?”_

_“No,” says Yassen with absolute certainty. “Definitely not.” Whatever John Rider’s other failings, Yassen does not believe he would have cheated on his wife. His refusal to sleep with Julia Rothman had been a contributing factor in his early demise. Your_ uncle _on the other hand… he adds silently. But he leaves that thought unsaid. Alex’s uncle is a topic best left for some other day. Or possibly never._

 

Back in his office, Ivan erases the video footage of the search and replaces it with a ten second loop of the feed from the empty rooms. Probably there is no need for such precautions, but it does no harm to be thorough. Of course, modern digital systems are meant to have safeguards to prevent such tampering, but nothing digital is immune from manipulation with the correct access rights.

He spends the remainder of the morning inside the Greek department for Immigration and Border Protection computer systems, trying to track down Thomas, Tommy or Tom James Barber. When that turns up no useful information, he widens his search, finding a Facebook account in the name of Tommy B which is mostly empty; an Instagram in the same name, which primarily features pictures of boats; and a Steam account, which shows TJBarber is a big fan of sailing sims. After three hours, Ivan is forced to admit defeat. Either Thomas James Barber is a level-headed young man who is sensibly wary of social media, or he does not really exist. Both conclusions are equally valid. Ivan is not a professional hacker. There are people he can employ to dig deeper, but that will require additional funds and agreement from his employer. He is not sure if he is ready to take that next step. At midday, he leaves his office and makes his way back downstairs. If computers cannot provide him any answers, then perhaps the old-fashioned methods will work.

At the door to the terrace, he pauses.

Oh, well.

Well.

Perhaps he has been mistaken after all.

After the dimness of the villa, the terrace is adazzle with light and English stands at its centre. His back is to Ivan, his forearms resting on the terrace wall as he looks out over the bay. Not for him the loose board shorts of his contemporaries; he is wearing a pair of neat little swimming trunks. They are red, a ripe, tomato red, with a white stripe running down each thigh, and Ivan must admit they fit him very nicely. Beneath his baggy clothing the boy has been hiding quite the body. Broad shoulders, lean hips, a strong, hard back and long legs lightly dusted with blond hair. He can well see why Andreas might have been tempted to abandon his usual preferences in favour of this particular boy. With his tousled curls and warm golden skin, he is quite the Adonis.

If Adonis had worn little red shorts.

English turns on his heel, some animal instinct alerting him to Ivan’s scrutiny. “Is everything okay?” he asks.

Ivan takes in the front view in silence. The firm, flat belly, the athletic chest, the necklace of beads which circle the boy’s neck. “Everything’s fine,” he says. “I wanted a drink.”

“Oh.” The boy turns back to the wall, staring down at the sea thirty metres below. “There’s a beach down there. Is there any way of getting to it?”

Ivan opens the kitchen door and takes a bottle of water from the fridge, careful not to disturb George who is stirring a pan and muttering fiercely. “Not from the terrace,” he says when he has gathered his thoughts. There is a path which winds through the wood of pine trees surrounding the villa and leads down the cliff edge, but he does not vouchsafe that piece of information. The beach is Andreas’s private retreat and Andreas does not like to share.

“There must be some way down there,” English insists, leaning further over the parapet. Really, Ivan reflects, the wall is too low: barely waist height. A firm push and the boy would be over it. “I can see a couple of dinghies pulled up on the sand.”

“Fishermen, most likely.” Andreas tells him to move them, but Ivan cannot see they do any harm. It is important to be pragmatic in life. If the villa’s security is compromised, it will not be because the local people are landing their catch in the same place they have landed their catch for the last twenty-five hundred years. It will be because Andreas invites someone untrustworthy into his house. But Andreas does not want to hear that and so he complains about the fishermen instead.

English nods absently. His mind has moved on to other concerns. “Is it lunch time soon?”

Ivan takes a drink to hide his amusement. In some ways the boy is unusual; but in others he is a very typical example of his type. “Maybe another half hour. George is making _spanakopita.”_ George makes a very good _spanakopita;_ it is one of the reasons why Ivan tolerates his smoking.

“Better get another couple of laps in then,” says English and turns back to the pool, diving smoothly into the water. As he sets off in an easy crawl, Ivan sees the trunks are not just for show. The boy is an excellent swimmer, cutting through the tranquil water with barely a ripple. Well, he has the body for it, after all.

He retreats to the shade of the pergola while he finishes his drink. Something is nagging at the corner of his mind and this time he has it. The boy’s accent has changed. No, he corrects himself, not his accent. It is his intonation which is different. The rising inflection has faded and he is speaking more slowly and with greater assurance. Less like a youth; more like a man.

As he ruminates, English swims to the edge of the pool and rests his arms on the side. “The water's nice,” he says. “Do you swim?”

“Not really,” says Ivan. He has used the interval to marshal his thoughts. “I burn easily, not like you; you have a good tan.”

English looks surprised. Not without reason. It is the first time Ivan’s tone has approximated anything close to friendly. “Thanks.”

“Have you been in the islands long?”

“Since July.”

“That long?” Ivan asks with mild surprise. Strange then, that all his toiletries are so new.

“Yeah. I came over as delivery crew from Southampton to Piraeus in June. Since then I’ve been island hopping, deckhand, bar work. That kind of thing. Camping out, trying to save money.”

“Sounds fun,” says Ivan. Just the kind of way an adventuresome young man might choose to spend his summer holidays. And almost impossible to verify, even in today’s digital, networked world. No airport records, no hotel bookings and mostly cash-in-hand work.

English flashes a carefree smile. “Yeah but I won’t lie, it’s nice to sleep in a proper bed with clean sheets and have my own shower again.”

A thread of doubt enters Ivan’s thoughts. It had seemed unlikely that a young man who looked as good as this would have any interest in cosying up to Andreas. But after a couple of months roughing it, the chance to stay in a nice villa, bed and board included, could plausibly be inducement enough. “And what do your parents think about you being away for so long?”

A guarded look comes into English’s eyes. “They’re pretty cool with it. I want to get my Yachtmaster Offshore certificate next year, so I have to log at least fifty days at sea.”

“I see,” says Ivan. Other than the stash of new toiletries this story all adds up very neatly. And he has the feeling that if he asks about the voyage from Southampton, he will receive some very polished answers about that too. English uses the pause in conversation to pull himself from the water with practiced grace and Ivan sees again the scar which extends across his left side. “What happened to you there? Boat hook?”

English hangs his towel quickly around his shoulders and looks about for his T-shirt. “BMX accident,” he says briefly. ”I landed on a tree branch. Cut me up quite badly.”

“Nasty,” Ivan says. In the bright midday sun, he can see traces of other scars too. Marks across the boy’s back which look like liquid splash burns. They have not come from a BMX accident either.

“Yeah,” says English, pulling on his T-shirt and tugging it down to his waist. “I was in hospital for a while.”

Ivan nods, now that he believes, but the rest is a fiction. He knows a gunshot wound when he sees one. The scar on the boy’s ribs has been left by a small calibre bullet leaving his body. The original Adonis had been gored to death by a boar but this one has been more fortunate: he has escaped with a little light shooting. “Be careful the water doesn’t damage your necklace,” is all he says.

English touches his throat, taken aback by the sudden change of subject. “It’s fine. They’re waterproof.”

Ivan holds out his hand. “May I see?”

The boy hesitates fractionally, but the question is reasonably phrased, difficult to refuse without seeming churlish. He pulls the necklace over his head and drops it into Ivan’s waiting palm. There are seven beads in total, each perhaps fifteen millimetres in diameter, strung along a plaited cord. They are made of a smooth polished material which has been dyed in graduated shades of umber, bronze and acid yellow. Probably worth only a few Euros, but pretty enough for all that. Ivan runs them through his fingers, feeling how they have retained the heat of the boy’s skin. Their texture interests him. He cannot tell if they are natural or man-made. They are too yielding to be stone, too heavy to be plastic, too smooth to be wood. “What are they made of?”

“Tagua nut.”

“A nut?” Ivan is intrigued. “Did you buy them in the islands?”

English looks abashed. “No, Camden market.”

“Ah.” Ivan understands the reason for his sudden reticence. The boy has been caught out in a small vanity. The beads are not a sentimental item, bought as a souvenir of island life. They were picked to flatter his warm colouring and, perhaps, draw attention to his nice chest. “Not quite the Delaney pearls,” he says and passes them back to their owner.

“Not really,” English says. As their hands touch, his eyes flick to Ivan’s face, but Ivan cannot read their expression.

 

* * *

 

Lunch is _spanakopita,_ as Ivan had predicted, the Greek feta and spinach pie served with a tomato salad. George and Ivan have a slice apiece. English has two and looks as though he could manage twice that without difficulty. Once the plates are cleared away, the villa falls into a somnolent mood. With the sun almost directly overhead, the flagstones of the terrace become too hot for bare feet, and the breeze from the sea drops to a whisper. Even the crickets in the pine trees fall silent. Ivan fetches himself a lemon soda and takes a seat in the deep shadow beneath the colonnade, preparing to relax for a few minutes before returning to work. English has put on his flip flops and is ambling aimlessly about the pool. He is discovering the downsides of villa life. The location is beautiful, but once one has eaten, there is little to do apart from swim, and look at the view. “Are there any books?” he asks as he circles past Ivan for the third time.

“Books?” Andreas is not a big reader of books. Ivan has a small library of his own, but he is not in the habit of lending out his belongings. “Perhaps in one of the guest rooms.”

While this is accurate, he is not being entirely truthful. The ground floor of the north wing is a games room. And although there are, strictly speaking, no books in it, there is a large screen television, hundreds of DVDs, a full-sized pool table, games consoles, glossy magazines, a pinball machine, a drinks cabinet and air conditioning. Everything a bored teenager could possibly want to entertain himself, and Ivan has the key hanging from the loop of his belt. It would be the work of moments to open the door and let English disappear inside until Andreas deigns to return, but Ivan is curious to see how long he will stick around with nothing to occupy him.

English flops onto a sunlounger .“Maybe I’ll just have a nap.”

As he settles onto the cushions, his T shirt rides up across his stomach. Ivan looks at the narrow band of revealed skin, the trail of blond hair which snakes beneath his waistband and feels an unmistakable slow curl of desire. The strength of his response surprises him, but perhaps, he reflects as he takes a mouthful of soda, it should not. The nature of his work means he takes on short-term assignments, focussing for a few days or weeks entirely upon the task in hand. Once the contract is delivered, then is the time to think about rest and relaxation. More recently though, he has been experimenting with a change in pace. This assignment is one such experiment. It has lasted for four months already, and once Ivan had completed the initial work of bringing the villa’s security up to specification there has, in truth, been very little for him to do. The food is good, the weather is balmy and when Andreas is away, which is most of the time, the company is undemanding. Rested, relaxed, and in no immediate peril, it is no great wonder that his body has mistaken the signs and assumed he is on holiday. And now, having sighted an attractive potential partner, it is signalling to him quite decidedly that it would like to have sex.

As he ruminates, George emerges from the kitchen and leans against the pergola, lighting up his afternoon cigarette with a blissful sigh. Ivan takes that as his cue to finish his soda and return to his rooms. He is here to work, after all, whatever his body might say. The office is hot, but with the shutters closed and both fans on, the heat is tolerable, he has worked in far worse. There is still no news from Yiannis, and he wonders idly if Andreas even knows the boy has arrived. He sends a few emails, then checks the cameras again. English has given up on the idea of napping and is playing on his phone, holding it over his head as his thumbs flick over the screen. With a touch of chagrin, Ivan realises that he has been looking in the wrong place. He will not find answers to the boy’s identity in his belongings or his social media accounts. Young people these days live out their lives on their phones. And they don’t bother with Facebook or email, they use Snapchat, WhatsApp and Kik.

 

_“Oh, do they really?”_

_“I‘ve heard so, yes._

 

English lasts on the terrace another half hour then retreats into the relative cool of the villa. As Ivan watches, he takes a brief tour through the reception rooms, but there is little enough in them to hold his attention and everything is under dustcovers. After ten minutes., he appears at the top of the stairs and begins looking through the empty guest rooms. In the fourth, he strikes lucky, discovering a small collection of books on a shelf above the door. Ivan remembers their original owner, a slender Moroccan youth with huge eyes. Constantine had ended up driving him to a doctor late at night after one of Andreas’s games had got out of hand. It had taken all of Ivan’s persuasive powers and a considerable amount of money to keep that quiet. Apparently satisfied, English returns to his bedroom, puts his phone on to charge, then lies on his bed for the rest of the afternoon reading slowly but with apparent comprehension. So, in addition to speaking rudimentary Greek, and possibly Russian, he also understands French. What an unusual young man he is.

 

* * *

 

 

The rest of the day passes without incident. English reads his book, plays on his phone, and eats a solitary meal on the terrace while watching the sunset. Ivan does some internet shopping and locks up the villa at midnight, turning in shortly after.

Then, at two in the morning, the vibration alarm under his pillow awakes him. When he checks the feeds, he sees with a mixture of resignation and annoyance that English’s bed is empty. Ivan does not need a lot of sleep but he is becoming a little weary of his every resting moment being disturbed by the boy’s actions. He opens his door silently and steps out onto the landing, his bare feet making no sound on the wooden boards. Once again starlight is the only illumination, but it is bright enough for him to see a tall figure standing at the end of the corridor, in front Andreas’s door.

“Now what are you doing?” he asks.

Interestingly, English does not startle. Some animal instinct has warned him he is no longer alone. He turns slowly and Ivan notices he is holding something in his right hand. When he flicks on the overhead light, he sees it is a toothbrush.

English blinks owlishly in the sudden glare. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Yes,” says Ivan. Anything coming within two metres of Andreas’s doorway will trigger the intruder alarm and wake him up. That is how it has been programmed to function.

“You must have good ears.”

Ivan shrugs. He does, in fact, have excellent ears, and also a recently installed, state-of-the-art security system at his disposal, but that is not really the point. “Why are you brushing your teeth at two o’clock in the morning in the corridor?”

English glances at his toothbrush as though he has forgotten he was holding it. “I forgot to brush them before I fell asleep.”

“And so you thought you would do it in the corridor?” Ivan inquires.

“You said there was a cupboard with toiletries.”

“Yes. At the top of the stairs.”

“Oh, right.” English gives an apologetic grimace. “Sorry. I was looking in the wrong place. I’ve run out of toothpaste.”

Ivan nods slowly. This is very strange because earlier there had been an almost full tube in his bag. “Come with me.”

The linen cupboard contains spare towels and sheets, a few blankets and a wicker basket of toiletries: replacement deodorants, suntan lotion, that kind of thing. The village store carries only a limited range and it is annoying to have to make a special trip into town to buy replacements.

“Didn’t you bring any with you?” he asks as English sorts through the various bottles and tubes.

The question is gently phrased, but the intention behind it is not. Everything so far is conjecture. English’s changing accent may be nerves; his disinclination to discuss his scars, the result of natural reticence; the Viagra tablets unusual, but not illegal, and his constant phone use annoying, but nothing out of the ordinary for a teenage boy. This though, appears to be an outright lie with no other purpose Ivan can see than to justify snooping about. If he says he has no toothpaste with him, then Ivan will know he is lying. And then they will have to have a little chat about what happens to people who lie to Ivan Anatolyevich. And depending on the outcome of that, perhaps a little walk down to the end of the terrace.

There’s a pause. Ivan waits patiently. He is standing between the boy and the main exit, and he has no urgent plans to be elsewhere.

“Yeah,” English says eventually. “Almost a full tube, but it split. I think it must have got squashed in my pack.”

It’s a good answer, Ivan has to admit. The tube could have been squashed during transit. Or split because Ivan had squeezed it earlier. Or English could have sliced it with his razor to provide himself an alibi. All three possibilities are equally plausible. And Ivan does not doubt that if he goes into English’s bedroom now there will be a split tube of toothpaste in his bin.

“Does this say toothpaste?“ English asks. “My Greek’s not that good.”

Ivan glances at the proffered tube. “Hair remover.” Some of Andreas’s guests have not been quite as smooth as Andreas would like. “You don’t want that. Here.” He takes the tube from the boy’s hand and gives him a green and white one instead. “This is toothpaste. Mastic flavoured. From Chios.” English opens the tube and sniffs it. He looks confused. Did he expect Ivan to play a practical joke, and leave him brushing his teeth with haemorrhoid cream? That would hardly be friendly. “It would be better,” Ivan adds gently, “if you didn’t walk around the villa at night either. You may set off the alarms.”

English looks taken aback. “Will the police turn up?”

Ivan gives an ironic smile. The police presence on the island involves at most half a dozen men, and they know better than to probe too deeply into Andreas’s affairs. “Worse. I will.”

“You already did,” English points out.

“Yes,” Ivan says simply and lets him think on that.

Another long pause. Ivan doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. He simply stands in the middle of the landing and waits.

“I’m going to bed now,” English says a little too loudly.

Ivan nods. “I think that would be for the best.”

 

_“Then what happens?” Alex wants to know._

_Yassen yawns and stretches, feeling his vertebrae click into place. For Alex it is still before midnight. For Yassen it is three hours later and dawn is already starting to line the silhouettes of the apartments across the street. “Then they both go to bed. Which is what I’m doing now.”_

_“Yas-sen.” A slow exhalation of annoyance._

_“A-lex,” he mimics softly._

_“What do you want?”_

_Yassen weighs the phone carefully in his hand. This is the delicate part. It will not do to sound too eager, but equally there is no advantage from appearing too aloof. “Will I speak to you next week?”_

_“Will you tell me the ending?” Alex counters._

_“Maybe.” He considers how much of the story is left to tell. “Probably not.”_

_“Tease,” Alex mutters._

_Yassen just smiles. “Goodnight, Alex,” he says and hangs up._

 


	3. The iPhone

The next morning, Ivan breakfasts by himself. A brief conversation with George reveals that their English guest has hitched a lift down to the village with Nikólaos who delivers the bread. Well and good, Ivan thinks. Although his stay has broken the tedium, he will not miss they boy’s habit of always appearing where he should not. After breakfast, instead of returning to his office, he takes a seat on a sunlounger and looks out across the pool. It will be another hot day, but the sun has yet to climb over the villa’s roof and in the shadow of its walls it is still quite cool. A slight breeze ripples the surface of the water and the scent of hay drifts over from the surrounding hillsides. The smell takes him back to the year before his fourteenth birthday, when life had been simple still. It had been the kind of summer’s day which people don’t realise Russia can have - long, hot and blue, and all the sweeter for being relatively few. He remembers lying in a grassy meadow outside his parents’ home and basking in the golden light of a July afternoon. He had lain there for hours, listening to the birdsong and feeling the strength and potential of his growing body. And all around him had been the warm scent of dry grass bleached yellow by the sun.

 

_“He’s quite the poet, this Ivan Anatolyevich Sorokin.”_

_“He’s Russian,” says Yassen._

 

Ivan lies back and permits himself a few rare moments of repose. The tension and minor annoyances of the last few days have melted away to leave a sense of wellbeing. He clears his mind and lets his thoughts drift free, focusing only on his breathing and the scents of a Greek summer. Time passes without him marking it. Only when a shadow passes over his face, do his eyes flick open. “What?”

With a trace of surprise, he sees the sun has shifted in the sky and is now well over the rooftop. English is standing at the base of his sunlounger, his backpack slung over one shoulder. By the sheen on his skin and the dust on his shoes he has just arrived back at the villa. “Hi,” he says.

“You’re back,” Ivan observes. Annoyance colours his tone, although part of it is aimed at himself. He had assumed from what George had said that the boy had packed up and left for good. He had not gone to check his room for himself. It is an amateur mistake; he should have known better.

“Sorry to wake you,” English says, not sounding at all apologetic. He is in a good mood, Ivan sees, a little sourly. His excursion has energised him. There is a brightness to his eyes and his tan appears to have deepened even over these last few hours, leaving a scattering of freckles across his nose.

“I wasn’t asleep.”

English looks as if he might argue but thinks better of it. “I had breakfast at the _kafeneon_ with Nikólaos. He said there was a track down to the beach through the woods, so I came back and found it. “

“Really?” What an enterprising young man this is. None of Andreas's other guests have felt the need to explore the surrounding countryside. They have been content to sit by the pool in attitudes of sensual languor and make eyes at their host.

“Yeah.” English runs a hand through his hair, dislodging a scattering of pine needles onto the flagstones. “It’s nice, though the boats have all gone.”

Ivan shrugs. By the heaviness in the air a storm is brewing. Most likely the fishermen have taken their vessels to a safer mooring. “Is there something you want from me?”

“Oh, yeah.” English remembers himself. “Can I have my T-shirt back?”

“I don’t have it,” says Ivan, and shuts his eyes. It is not his job to play nursemaid. If the boy has lost something then he should learn to take better care of his belongings.

English’s voice takes on a curious intonation, as though he is trying not to laugh. “You’re lying on it.”

“No.” But when Ivan sits up, he sees with a trace of chagrin that he is. An orange Hollister T-shirt has been crushed down the side of the sunlounger. He pulls it free and shakes out the creases. “Is it yours?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” The cotton is soft and faded, the colour of a sun-baked terracotta pot. As he smooths it out, he catches once more the warm, grassy scent of high summer - and realises his mistake. There are no meadows on this island: the hillside below them is covered in tumbled white rock, interspersed with low shrubs and scrubby trees. The scents of a Greek island summer are resinous pine, thyme and sea salt. English reaches out to take the T-shirt from him and Ivan’s fingers tighten in the fabric. There is a brief, hard-fought tug-of-war, before Ivan releases his grip.

“Thanks,” English says dryly.

He tosses the shirt over his shoulder and goes into the kitchen, calling out a greeting to George as he takes a bottle of water from the fridge. Already he has made himself quite at home here, Ivan notes. He rises and brushes himself down. By the angle of the sun, it is now almost eleven and he has an errand to run. The main Post Office closes at two, and since it is the hub for all the deliveries onto the island, the queues can be long.

English leans against the villa wall and takes a long drink. “Are you going somewhere?” he says as he notices the details of Ivan’s outfit for the first time. He is dressed differently today, in tan chinos and a fitted blue shirt of light cotton. Ivan is not a vain man-

 

_“Something in your throat, Alex?”_

_“No, I’m fine.”_

_“If you’re sure_.”

 

Ivan is _not_ a vain man. But he knows the paler colours suit him better than his usual hard black, and the slim cut flatters his trim frame. It is the outfit which he wears when he needs minor officials to cooperate with him. There has been little call for thus far but today he has a parcel arriving which he does not want to be delayed.

“It’s Wednesday,” he says. Which is not an answer at all, but it amuses him to see English’s brow furrow. Being puzzled suits him. And it takes his attention from Ivan, which is as he prefers

“I didn’t know you wore anything which wasn’t black,” he says eventually.

“Of course,” says Ivan. “I’m not a vampire.” And he smiles, displaying a mouthful of small pearly white teeth.

 

* * *

 

The outfit weaves its magic on the counter clerk. By early afternoon he has collected his parcel and is back beneath the pergola sipping on a grenadine and soda, grainy with shaved ice. In concession to the heat, he has swapped his boots for sandals-

 

_“Told you his feet would get sweaty.”_

 

And aviator sunglasses cover his eyes. Usually he spends the afternoon hours in his office, but there is no reason why, when the weather is as hot as it is today, he cannot take his laptop outside and admire the view. And it is a very nice view. English has donned his red trunks again and gone for a swim. Up and down the pool he goes with an easy, overarm crawl which cuts through the water like a knife. Ivan sits, and watches, and types. There is a pleasure in seeing a skill so completely mastered, just as there is pleasure in watching a talented artist paint, or a dancer perform. But as the lengths stack up he is reminded a little of a lion pacing its cage: so much nervous energy with so little outlet. He had been much the same as a young man, but experience has taught him to conserve his resources. Which is why on the hottest day of the year so far he is sitting quietly in the shade, with a long, cool drink, while the English boy tears up and down the pool in the full glare of the blistering sun. From his vantage point Ivan can see the iPhone. It is resting on a chair, half-hidden beneath the boy’s discarded towel, but he makes no move towards it. Instead, he sips on his drink, and waits.

In time, his patience is rewarded, as patience often is. English pulls himself from the pool, skips rapidly across the hot flagstones and flops onto a sunlounger. Ivan stirs the last of the ice into his soda and doesn’t move. The air is hot and heavy. The scent of wild thyme drifts in from the hillside. Above the pool, a pair of brown and orange butterflies perform an erratic, halting dance. Time slows. The sun is a white disc in a white sky, blazing almost directly over their heads and casting no shadows. The flat light gives the scene a strangely artificial quality. Even the crickets have fallen dumb.

“You’ll burn,” he says into the silence.

English stirs but doesn’t answer. His morning walk and long swim have worn him out. Ivan sets down his drink and moves soundlessly across the terrace. The reflected heat from the hot paving stones hits his face like a slap and it is a relief to reach the shade of the colonnade. The boy is lying on his front, half in and half out of the shadow. His head is pillowed on one forearm, his hair spilling around his head in a messy halo. His other arm is half tucked beneath his chest and in his hand he is loosely cradling the iPhone. Seeing it, Ivan frowns. He has heard of teenagers being attached to their technology, but this is ridiculous. He stares down at the sleeping boy, debating what to do next. With his flushed cheeks and slightly parted lips, he looks the very picture of innocence. It is hard to believe one young man has caused him so much extra work. Close up, it is apparent he is not perfect: there is a birthmark on his left shoulder and the hand holding the iPhone has bitten nails. But these small defects do not detract from his appeal. Rather, Ivan thinks, as he runs his gaze down the boy’s sleeping form, they add piquancy to what otherwise might be too blandly perfect a picture. But before he can complete this thought, something catches his attention. His eyes narrow and he crouches so he can see more.

The human foot is a complex structure; Leonardo da Vinci called them a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art. Each one is unique, with its own ins and outs, hidden and mysterious, but these feet are more mysterious than most. Ivan lifts the boy’s leg and rests one foot in his hand, the curved surface of its upper side fitting smoothly into his palm. Were he so minded, he could crush three bones in the boy’s ankle with a simple twist of his wrist, leaving him crippled for life. But that is not his intention. For a teenage boy, English has nice feet: smooth heels and, in contrast to his fingers, neatly cut nails. Not, to Ivan’s mind, the scarred, salt-cured appendages of the professional deckhand. And there is something else here, too, something unexpected. He rests his thumbs on either side of the boy’s Achilles tendon and stretches the skin a little. Here, beneath the protruding bone of the ankle, the hidden flesh is as pale as milk, and there is a faint line of darker skin which runs above it, circling around the heel, as though smudged by the hasty pulling on of a shoe. Well, youth is impatient. And sometimes careless. Is this smooth, golden tan from a summer spent sailing the Greek islands, or from a spray booth?

He gently returns the foot to its resting place and debates what to do next. This is all adding up into something very suggestive. The most straightforward response would be to end things now, carry the sleeping boy to the end of the terrace and drop him over the sea wall onto the sand thirty metres below. With skill, it could be done so gently he would not even wake before he landed. The afternoon tide will wash his body out to sea and by the time he is found, if he is found at all, scavengers will have picked the flesh from his bones and his bright hair will be all tangled with dark weed. But though this plan has the advantage of simplicity, still Ivan hesitates. If he is right, then the social media accounts are also fake, and the mysterious message which called Andreas away on business is likely a decoy– this speaks of larger forces than can be mustered by a single lone teenager. And in those circumstances, if a British holidaymaker goes missing in mysterious circumstances then it might be expected that sooner rather than later there will be polite inquiries from the British Consulate to the Greek authorities. Inquiries which Andreas is unlikely to welcome. And while George and Lukas are old enough hands at this game to know how to keep a dumb tongue in their heads, Constantine and Nikólaos are not. Either by good luck or good judgement, the boy has made his presence at the villa public knowledge. And that means a caution is required. At least until Ivan knows exactly who he is dealing with.

As he rises to his feet, he catches sight of a plastic bottle by the foot of the sunlounger, sun lotion, an expensive foreign brand, left behind by a previous guest. He looks from the bottle to English’s sleeping figure thoughtfully, and a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Though he has a job to do, there is no reason why he cannot indulge himself a little in the process. There is, as the British like to say, more than one way to skin a cat. He pulls an adjacent sunlounger a little closer and takes a seat on one side. The sun lotion has thinned in the heat, and runs rapidly into his cupped palm, a golden oil which smells faintly of sweet almonds. He starts at the base of the boy’s spine, careful not to get oil onto his trunks, then slides his hand up to his shoulder and along his upper arm. The boy’s skin is hot from the sun, and thirsty, the oil lingers on its surface for a moment and then sinks into it, like water disappearing into sand. A second application, then he leans over the boy’s prone body to begin on the other side. This time as his hand touches skin, English stirs. Ivan feels the exact moment he wakes. His muscle tone changes and a sudden electric tension enters his body.

“What?” he says, thick and groggy.

“You were burning,” Ivan says reasonably. His keeps his voice low, and the slow glide of his hand does not falter. To pull away now would suggest a guilty conscience, and he has nothing to be guilty about. He is merely providing a public service. Pale northern skins do not do well in the fierce Mediterranean sun. “You don’t want to burn.”

English doesn’t answer immediately and Ivan cannot blame him for that. It must be a confusing situation to find oneself in: to wake from a deep sleep to discover a virtual stranger rubbing scented oil into your nearly naked body. Men twice his age would struggle to think of a snappy response. “You don’t have to do that,” he says at last.

Ivan reapplies the oil to his hands, a judicious dribble, then turns his attention to the boy’s legs. “I don’t mind.” In truth he really does not. He has forgotten the feeling of skin beneath his hands, its warmth, its suppleness, its multiple contrasting textures. At the ankle, as thin as tissue paper, almost translucent. Here, at the calf, a little rough with hair, and pulled tight and springy over the muscle. Behind the knee, smoothly yielding and satiny soft, and here, at the thigh.

Ah, at the thigh…

 

_“At the thigh?” Alex prompts._

_Yassen’s eyes flick open. It is a shock to see the clean sparse lines of his St Petersburg apartment, and not a white Greek villa drowsing beneath the midday sun. To smell the tea in the cup by his side, rather than pine trees, mountain herbs and sweet almonds. “What are you wearing?”_

_“Wearing?” There’s a pause as Alex processes the sudden change in subject. Yassen takes a sip of his tepid tea and does not speak. He has been telling this story for three weeks now. It is time for Alex to give him something back. “Joggers,” says Alex at last._

_“Just joggers?” he asks, intrigued. Is Alex lying half-naked in his bed, listening to Yassen talk? That is a pretty picture._

_“And a T-shirt.”_

_“And what are you wearing beneath the joggers and the T-shirt?”_

_Embarrassment colours Alex’s voice. “I was in the shower when you called.”_

_Oh, so nothing beneath the joggers and the T-shirt? Yassen files this piece of information away for future consideration and settles into a more comfortable position on his sofa. “Tell me about the joggers.”_

_“There’s not much to say. They’re grey, loose, white logo on the left leg.”_

_“And what about-”_

_“What are_ you _wearing?” Alex interrupts growing weary of the interrogation_

_“Jeans. Now tell me about your T-shirt.”_

_A grumble greets this instruction. “Tell me about your jeans first.”_

_“They are just jeans,” says Yassen. Then, unbending a little he adds, “Not loose like Americans wear, not skinny, like in London. Just blue jeans.”_

_“And what else?” Alex asks, growing in boldness._

_Yassen looks down at himself. “A T-shirt, a grey merino wool sweater.”_

_“Is it cold where you are?”_

_“You always want to talk about the weather,” Yassen observes. This call has been routed through four fake IP addresses. He has no intention of telling Alex where he is. “Tell me about your T-shirt.”_

_A pause. “It’s an old Karate club one.”_

_The only clean thing in the drawer, Yassen surmises. “Cotton?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Soft?” Faded, much-washed cotton is often soft._

_A slight pause. “Yes,” Alex discovers._

_“Yes.” He can picture it now. Alex, warm and clean, his hair still a little damp from the shower, in his softest most comfortable clothes. “So, where was I?”_

_“His legs,” says Alex, transparently trying not to sound too interested._

_“Oh, yes.”_

 

English’s thighs are covered in fine, golden hair with a few coarser strands scattering their upper reaches. Andreas likes his boys as smooth and hairless as marble statues, but Ivan has less sophisticated tastes; a little fuzz on the peach is no bad thing, especially not one as ripe and juicy as this. Seconds tick by. His hands glide higher, making little pretence now that they are engaged in anything other than exploratory caresses, and English lies motionless beneath him pinned to the cushions in-what? Shock? Embarrassment? Or something else? The back of the thighs can be a very erogenous place, perhaps because of the number of nerves that run close to the skin there, perhaps because of their proximity to other, sensitive areas. English’s swimming trunks stop a modest five centimetres down his legs, demarking the limit of where plausible deniability ends and amorous advances begin. The sun is hot on the top of Ivan’s head and the oil smells like the tender little almond pastries which George will sometimes make for breakfast. It is tempting to push further, go higher, to reach the silken groove at the top of the boy’s thighs and run his fingers along it. To roll him over, slide down his shorts and let nature take its course.

But- duty calls. And so, he draws a line across the boy’s skin, following the hem of the shorts with his thumb nails, letting his hands linger for a second or two, before pulling away. “Now you won’t burn,” he says.

A second ticks by, then another. “I should have a shower,” English blurts, and with a scramble of legs, he bolts for the pool hut. For a moment there is silence, then the water begins to run, and continues to run without pause, undoing all Ivan’s good work. He gives a slight, philosophical shrug and looks down at the sunlounger. In the boy’s rush he has forgotten to pick up his towel. And there look, hidden beneath is his iPhone. Well, good things come to those who wait. He picks it up, slips it into his trouser pocket and returns languidly to his rooms.


	4. An interlude

_“What’s up?”_

_Yassen pauses. It is Alex’s voice, unmistakably, but it’s not the greeting he had expected. “It’s me,” he says at last._

_“I know it’s you,” says Alex, exasperated. “I told you, most people don’t call any more, and especially not at this time of night.”_

_“Oh.” In the background, Yassen hears a muffled thump and the jangle of metal. “What are you doing?”_

_Further jangling. “Trying to find a clean spoon.”_

_“Oh,” says Yassen again, little the wiser. It is late. He had expected to find Alex half-asleep, and in a drowsy, agreeable state of mind, ready to hear the next instalment. Instead he is wide awake and ransacking his surroundings for cutlery. “Shall I call you tomorrow?”_

_“No, I‘ve got one now. Hang on.”_

_Yassen waits. He hears a door close. It’s a fire door, an automatic spring-lever pulling it shut. Then footsteps on a hard floor. Most people don’t put him on hold. Even people who don’t know him, hear something in his voice which warns them against it. But Alex Rider is not like other people. A pause. A second fire door opens and shuts._

_“Hi,” Alex says. “Are you still there?”_

_“I’m still here,” Yassen allows. He pauses to gather his thoughts. “I was telling you a story,” he begins, “about a villa in Greece. And about the head of security, Ivan Anatolyevich, and the English boy who arrived there, late one summer’s afternoon-”_

_“Yeah. Can I finish eating first though? I’m starving.”._

_A single muscle twitches in Yassen’s cheek. But if he hangs up now, there is no guarantee Alex will answer again, and if he carries on talking, Alex will either continue eating and not listen, or stop, and become bad-tempered from hunger. “What are you eating?” he says conceding defeat._

_A pause while Alex swallows. “Weetabix, with hot water.”_

_The answer is unexpected enough to make Yassen forget his annoyance. “That is not proper food.”_

_“I know,” Alex says. He sounds tired and slightly fed up. “I got back late from karate and someone’s used all my milk.”_

_Yassen frowns. “Who did this?”_

_“I don’t know. One of the guys on my floor.”_

_“Huh.” He hadn’t realised Alex shared lodgings. Normally he would not press further, but tonight Alex is in an uncommonly forthcoming mood, if a little grumpy. “You share an apartment?”_

_“Self-catering halls of residence. Bedroom with an en-suite and a kitchen between ten of us.”_

_“Oh.” Yassen revises his mental image of Alex’s university life. If he’d thought of it, he’d pictured something on a smaller scale, less institutional, but perhaps Alex is used to group quarters. “Do you like it?”_

_“It’s all right,” says Alex without much enthusiasm. “Better when people don’t use my milk.”_

_“You shouldn’t let people take your food.”_

_“And how do you suggest I stop them?” Alex asks dryly. “And don’t say ‘kill them.’”_

_“I wasn’t going to say kill them.” There is more than one way to resolve a dispute._

_“Uh-huh.”_

_“Look them in the eye, and tell them if they steal your milk again, you will kill them.”_

_“Uh-huh.”_

_“Then smile,” Yassen adds. The smile is the important thing, in his experience._

_“Anyway,” says Alex. “I was thinking about buying a fridge for my room. A second-hand one from eBay.”_

_“Or you could do that,” Yassen agrees. He isn’t quite sure what Alex wants from him here. It doesn’t seem to be Yassen’s advice, and it certainly isn’t his approval. His job means he has had to socialise with royalty, models, billionaires and he has never once struggled for something to say, but this is a little different. There is no desired outcome to this conversation; nothing for Yassen to achieve. Alex is simply talking about the minutiae of his day, as normal people do, letting off steam. Yassen had thought he would find such chit-chat annoying. As it turns out, he doesn’t find it annoying; but he does find it strange._

_“Yeah.” Alex yawns. “I’ll have to see if I can pick up a couple of extra shifts at work.”_

_“You work?” He hadn’t known Alex had a job either. Alex doesn’t need to work while he is studying; Yassen could buy him a fridge. Yassen could buy him several fridges, and a house to put them in, if he so chose. But since what Alex wants, more than anything else, is to be a normal teenager, Yassen won’t._

_“Bicycle courier. Food delivery place. It’s not too bad, at the end of a shift they cook you a free pizza.”_

_“I see.” Yassen is not sure he would want a job cycling around London, even if it meant free pizza. But, realistically, it is not the most dangerous job Alex has ever had._

_“Can you cook?” Alex asks suddenly._

_“Yes?” says Yassen. He is becoming more adept at keeping pace with these lightening changes of subject._

_“What kind of thing do you cook?”_

_“Russian food, mostly. Italian sometimes.”_

_“Do you like cooking?”_

_Like it? Yassen turns this question over in his head. It isn’t something he has considered before. It is necessary to eat, and so he cooks. But if he wanted, he could afford to eat every meal at a restaurant or hire someone to cook for him. As he doesn’t, he supposes he must. “Yes.”_

_“Jack hates it.”_

_Jack is the housekeeper. The red-haired American woman. Yassen has no idea why they are now talking about her. “Oh?” he inquires._

_“Yeah. She only cooks things which take less than ten minutes from start to finish. And my uncle-” There’s a pause. Who you killed, Yassen inserts mentally into the gap, but Alex doesn’t seem to want to address that tonight. “He didn’t cook very often, but when he did he’d use every pan in the kitchen. So, if I want to make a five course Keralan banquet, or something like sushi, then I’m sorted. But it’s not actually that useful for day to day life.”_

_“I see.” says Yassen. Unexpectedly, he does. The culinary arts had formed part of his training at Malagosto. He knows how to prepare blow fish so it is safe to eat, and also so it isn’t. He can bake a Genoise sponge and a perfect souffle. His Bearnaise sauce never splits, not even when laced with cyanide. But none of those skills had helped him the first time he had found himself alone in the chilled aisle of a supermarket, needing to decide what food to buy. There had been ten types of milk; twenty types of yogurt and too many cheeses to number. In the end, he’d bought bread, sausage, a box of tea, and a bag of oranges, and lived off them for a week._

_“Did your parents teach you to cook?”_

_"My parents?” Yassen does not normally talk about his family. On the other hand, there are some parts of a Soviet childhood which are so generic they barely count as personal information. “No, mostly they ate at the factory canteen.”_

_“Oh.” Alex doesn’t know what to make of this. Had he expected tales of rosy-cheeked Pioneer children, chopping piles of earthy vegetables around a kitchen table? Perhaps he had. Orphans often have an unrealistic picture of what family life entails._

_“My grandmother cooked,” he admits. “Sometimes I would help her.”_

_Alex seizes on this admission eagerly. “What did she cook?”_

_“Whatever we had,” Yassen says shortly, before realising Alex is not being deliberately obtuse, only fortunate enough to have grown up at a time and place without food shortages. “But sometimes Golubtsy. Little pigeons.”_

_“Pigeon?”_

_“No. Cabbage rolls, stuffed with rice and meat.” There is a particular way of folding the cabbage, so the filling doesn’t escape. His grandmother had taught him how to do it. He had forgotten about that._

_“Oh.” A yawn. “I think I had something similar in Poland.”_

_“Maybe,” Yassen says. Polish Golubtsy are not as good as Russian, in his view. But it is a topic which divides opinion._

_“How do you make them?”_

_“Golubtsy? Why? Are you going to start stuffing cabbages in your student kitchen?”_

_“Might make a change from pizza.”_

_Yassen hesitates, but it is hardly classified information. There are a thousand and one websites which Alex could consult, if he really wants to know. “First you boil some rice.”_

_“How much rice?”_

_He shrugs, it isn’t really that kind of recipe. “A handful, maybe two. Then you drain it and set it aside. Next, you take a big pan and put it to boil.”_

_“How big?”_

_“Big enough to fit your cabbage._ _And while it is heating you take your cabbage and remove the outer leaves.”_

_“Cabbage,” says Alex, he yawns again. “Right.”_

_“You carve out the core and you put the cabbage in the pan and boil it, until the leaves begin to soften and pull away. While you are waiting, you take some carrots…” He pauses, waiting to be asked how many carrots, but his words are greeted by silence. “Alex?”_

_“Carrots?” says Alex after a second._

_“Are you awake?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Shall I go on?”_

_“Yes.”_

_So Yassen continues, setting out step by step how to make Golubtsy the proper, old-fashioned way. And when he is finished he sits in silence, listening to the sound of soft breathing until his phone battery goes dead._


	5. The storm

_“Are you sitting comfortably?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Fed?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Awake?”_

_A defensive note enters Alex’s voice. “Obviously.”_

_He is embarrassed he fell asleep last time, Yassen surmises. He thinks it reflects badly on him. And when he had awoken, he would have found the call had lasted for hours. He is not sure what that means. Well, Yassen is not sure what it means either so that makes two of them. In any case, he does not want to argue right now. Face to face, yes, let them circle and snap and whet their wits on each other, even as they whet their appetites. But at two thousand kilometres distance, a more conciliatory approach is required._

_“That’s good,” he says. “You remember last time Ivan had collected a parcel from the main town?”_

_“I remember.”_

_“Then I will begin.”_

 

The parcel is the size of a carry-on suitcase. Inside is a heavy-duty plastic box of the kind professional photographers use to transport the tools of their trade. But the contents of this box are not cameras and lenses. The lid contains a touch screen tablet and the base a series of USB cables. It is a standalone digital data extraction toolkit. In a matter of minutes, it can bypass encryption software and download all the information contained on a digital device: location data, deleted pictures, encrypted messages, everything. They had been designed for the sole use of law enforcement agencies but one or two had made their way into the wrong hands. Of course, this should never have been allowed to happen, but no system is completely secure once people get involved.

Ivan places the case on his desk and takes English’s phone from his pocket. It is the latest iPhone, released only a few months ago. It has a sleek grey case, touch id, a twelve-thousand-megapixel camera and a hundred million times more processing power than the computers which had sent Apollo 11 to the moon, everything a tech-savvy young man could want. Ivan slots a cable into the phone’s side. An LED flashes green and the tablet screen lights up. He scrolls to ‘iPhone’ on the menu, then selects ‘extract all data’ and sits back and waits. A spinning hourglass appears in the middle of the screen. The Dyson fans behind him push out a silent stream of sultry air but it makes little difference to the overall temperature. The air is hot, not the dry heat of the past few weeks, but a damp heavy heat which clings to the skin. And though Ivan sits quietly he can feel the perspiration gathering at the nape of his neck and the base of his spine.

Without warning, the tablet beeps. The LED blinks off. Then on. Then off again. Then begins to pulse rapidly. Ivan’s reflexes are better than most peoples. He has the phone detached from its cable in less than a second, long before the error message appears on the screen. But it is already too late. When he dismisses it, the display turns blue and the LED goes dead. The toolkit is inert. Either the latest iPhone operating system has some very interesting security features, or someone has installed some sophisticated anti-tampering software on to this phone. In any case, ten thousand American dollars’ worth of cutting-edge data extraction technology is now nothing more than ten cents’ worth of doorstop.

There is a small refrigerator in one corner of his office, big enough to hold a few bottles and an ice cube tray. He takes out a bottle of water and considers what to do next, but before he can come to a decision he is interrupted by a banging at his door. The sound is so unexpected it takes him a moment to place. No one disturbs him when he is working. Even Andreas recognises Ivan’s office is sacrosanct. The CCTV feed shows English is standing outside. The angle does not reveal his expression, but the tight set of his shoulders tells its own tale.

“Have you seen-” he begins as Ivan opens the door.

But Ivan is one step ahead of him. Before the boy can finish his sentence he has placed the phone gently into his uncomprehending hand. “You left this in the kitchen. On top of the fridge.”

English looks from Ivan’s face to the phone and back again, and his lips thin. He knows where it was left, and that was not on the fridge. “Really?” he says managing to inject a world of scepticism into a single word.

Ivan nods and leans forward confidentially, waiting until the boy’s head dips to hear his words. “You should learn to take better care of your things,” he murmurs into his ear. “Even here, in this villa, you never know who might be watching.”

It is unlike him to deliberately stir up the hornet’s nest. Usually he is more circumspect. Perhaps it is an effect of the brewing storm. Or the last few nights of broken sleep. Or annoyance that he has wasted thousands of dollars on a now-defunct box of electronics. In any case, the barb hits its mark. English draws back and gives him a long cool stare. “You can’t be very good at your job then,” he says.

Ivan draws back. “What?”

The boy’s eyes are steady, showing no signs of fear though Ivan’s gaze has narrowed to an intensity which could strip flesh from bone. “If anyone can just waltz in here and take what they want, then you can’t be very good at your job.” He raises an insolent eyebrow. “Can you?”

“I am very good at my job,” Ivan says softly.

“If you say so,” English says with a careless shrug of his shoulders. He tucks the phone into his shorts pocket and saunters down the hallway, without waiting for a reply. Ivan leans against the door jamb and watches him go. If he had questioned the boy’s air of goofy enthusiasm previously, he knows it is a sham now. This little pup has sharp teeth.

 

* * *

 

The storm breaks just after two in the morning with a flash of lightning and crash of thunder that feels like the end of the world. Ivan has been asleep in his bedroom, lying naked on top of his bedsheets with a damp towel draped across his hips in concession to the oppressive heat. He turns on the light just as the next crack of thunder sounds directly overhead. Through the slats of the shutters he sees a fork of lightning leap across the sky, illuminating the bay like a floodlight. Then the rain begins, a solid sheet of water dropping from the sky as though someone has turned on a garden hose. The intensity reminds him of storms in the tropics, sitting in a bar by a lake in Venezuela, drinking rum and Coca Cola and counting the number of times lightning strikes hit the water. He opens up the shutters and is hit by a rush of cooler air and the smell of wet earth rising from the parched ground. Within a minute, the flagstones of the terrace are awash and the surface of the pool looks as if it is boiling. The rain is so heavy he can barely make out the north wing of the villa through the silvery veil of falling water. It is a good night for mischief. The CCTV cameras will be almost useless and the Rottweilers will be hiding in their run. Even as he thinks it a stab of lightning smashes down to earth, with a crack of thunder which seems to shake the building’s very foundations. A profound silence follows. Even the rain seems to pause. The bedroom light pulses brighter and then the room goes black. Outside, the pool lights flick off too. All is darkness and the sound of the storm.

Ivan dresses swiftly, pulling on trousers and shoes. The island does not generate its own electricity. It is connected by an underseas cable to a neighbouring island 80 kilometres away. Supply can be patchy, particularly in the summer months when tourists swell the population five-fold, but this complete power out is something different. A lightning strike to an overhead line may have caused the villa’s circuit breakers to trip. Or more seriously, in the high winds a tree branch could have fallen on to a feeder line up to the village and knocked out electricity to the entire area. There is only one way to find out. In a darkness lit intermittently by flickering lightning he takes a pencil torch from a drawer in his bedside table and goes to investigate.

The fuse box is located in the kitchen, on the front wall facing the main gates. He enters from the villa side, picking his way through the cavernous reception rooms until he comes to the interlinking door and unlocks it with a key from his belt. The kitchen is in darkness. The lights on the fridges and the tall freezer are all dead, and the low ever-present hum of electrical appliances has ceased. He plays the torch beam over the kitchen walls until he locates the fuse box high in one corner. As he approaches, he becomes aware of a strange smell. Not the usual cooking scents of garlic and oregano, but something chemical and unpleasant.

Operating on instinct, he plucks a wooden spoon from a utensil jar and climbs onto a stainless-steel workstation to reach the fuse box and uses the spoon handle to lift its metal cover. His desert boots have rubber soles, but he is not particularly eager to put their insulating properties to the test. Beneath the cover is a tangle of switches, cables and dials which appear to date to the villa’s construction some forty years ago. An attempt has been made to label the various parts with their functions, but the labels are grease-stained and lifting, and the handwriting is crabbed. Ivan’s spoken Greek is functional but not perfect, and he speaks it better than he reads. He would not want to wager his life on being able to decipher these scrawled words. The torch beam moves slowly across the panel. There are no black marks on the facing, nor around the cable mountings, but the switches have all tripped to the off position, and when he sniffs, he catches again the strange chemical scent. Many things can cause electrical insulation to perish - heat, age, solvents - and the results can be spectacular. Touch a live wire to a neutral and, with luck, you can destroy every electrical appliance that is plugged into that circuit. Of course, without luck, you may lose your eyebrows. And possibly your life.

He lowers the panel cover and jumps lightly to the floor. The villa has a diesel generator for situations just such as these. It would be the work of moments to set it running. But if the fault is with the fuse box, then resetting the circuit breakers and booting up the generator will fry not only Andreas’s expensive home entertainment system, the pool pump and all of the kitchen appliances, but also the CCTV cameras, the electric gates, and the biometric lock to Andreas’s apartment. Admittedly, the chances are not large, but Ivan has not reached his present age by taking unnecessary risks. Constantine’s uncle is an electrician. They will call him tomorrow morning and ask for his advice. Until then, it is better that the power stays off. The food in the freezers will stay frozen for 24 hours, the gates can be operated manually, and Andreas’s door has a back-up battery which will last for five days. In all, it is a very good system, arguably the fuse box is the one weak point. Indeed, if Ivan were attempting to cause trouble then that is probably where he would begin.

With that thought in mind he makes his way back upstairs. The storm is passing overhead almost as quickly as it arrived. Thunder continues to roll around the hilltops, but it rumbles rather than cracks, arriving a few seconds behind the lightning, and the rain is easing from a constant deluge to a steady downpour. At present, however, the weather is the least of his concerns. Only when he reaches the top of the stairs, does he relax marginally. In the absolute darkness the glowing screen of the palm reader set into Andreas’s door shines like a beacon. The power indicator is amber, showing the supply is coming from the back up battery, but the remainder of the lights are green.

He makes his way back up the corridor, passing his office without pausing. With the power off, the CCTV system is non-operational and all his state-of-the-art surveillance system is just so much expensive junk. He stops instead at the entrance to the second guest bedroom. The door is slightly ajar. He pushes it open and plays the torch beam around the room. As he expects, the bed sheets are rumpled and the pillows askew, but the bed itself is empty. Well, this will be the boy’s last transgression. A little nocturnal wondering may be excused but sabotage is a more serious matter.

“Hello?” a voice calls as he turns to leave. He snaps the torch-beam around in time to see English emerge from the bathroom, rubbing his wet hair on a towel. He is wearing only boxer shorts and bead necklace and he appears unsinged, all his eyebrows intact. “Is that Ivan?” he asks, squinting towards the torch light.

Ivan directs the beam onto the ceiling so the shadows leap into the corners of the room. “Yes.”

English blinks at him owlishly as he finishes drying his hair. “Where are your clothes?” he asks at last.

Ivan looks down at his bare chest. In all the excitement he has forgotten his state of undress. “I changed in a hurry,” he says. “Why are you wet?”

“I was out on the balcony watching the storm.”

“I see.” Ivan glances towards the long window. Well, that could be one reason of course. Or he could just have returned from the terrace, after slipping into the kitchen through the unlocked external door. But that seems a risky endeavour. There is no guarantee he would not bump into someone on his way through the villa. And there are no wet footprints leading up the corridor to his bedroom doorway, no droplets of water scattered across the floorboards from his dripping hair.

“It was a big one,” English adds. He appears to have forgotten their last encounter. There is a brightness to his face, as if he finds the thunder and lightning invigorating. As if he only comes alive in the presence of threat.

“Yes.” Ivan opens the shutters onto the balcony. Outside is almost pitch black and raining still quite heavily. The balcony is a small one, a simple semi-circle with a cast iron railing, positioned approximately four metres above the terrace. Is that how it has been done? A sheet or rope tied to the ironwork, then in and out of the kitchen before anyone came to investigate? There is no sign of any rope now, but in the torch light he sees the tiles around the base of the shutters are covered in pools of water, as though they have been stood open for quite some time. It is possible, but one would have to be quick and strong and lucky. Very lucky.

English tosses the towel onto the bed and casts Ivan a curious look. “The power’s out,” he says.

“The power is out,” Ivan agrees. He returns inside and closes the shutters. On that matter, at least, he can be quite definite. “Do you have a torch?”

“There’s one on my phone.”

“Of course.” It is the phone that has everything, after all.

“Is it a problem, the power being off?”

“It’s not a problem. By tomorrow evening it should be fixed.” Is that a flicker of consternation in the boy’s eyes? It is gone too quickly for Ivan to say.

“But until then?” he presses.

“Until then internet, lights and hot water are all off.”

“Oh.”

“Yes,” says Ivan. “Oh.” He makes his way to the bathroom and directs the torch beam inside, but as he expects there is no coiled rope hanging conveniently over the shower rail.

“Are you looking for something?” English asks.

“What would I be looking for?” He crouches on the terracotta tiles and shines the light beneath the bed but there is only dust there and a pair of old trainers.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you?” He rises to his feet. “So the internet, lights and hot water are off until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“So, you said,” says English. There is a watchful expression in his dark eyes, for all his air of relaxed confidence.

“But you know, if you think you will be bored here, you don’t have to stay.”

“I’m not bored,” English says quickly.

“All the same,” says Ivan. “You don’t have to stay.”

There is a long awkward pause. The thunder has died away. All that remains is the sound of drumming rain.

“Anyone would think you didn’t want me to be here,” English says dryly.

“Truly,” Ivan admits, “I don’t. One way or another, you seem to make me a lot of work.”

“Andreas -” English begins but Ivan cuts him off with an impatient gesture.

“Andreas won’t even remember who you are. You think he doesn’t have a choice of boys to fuck?”

English’s face goes blank at the profanity but rather to Ivan’s surprise, he doesn’t rise to the bait. “I’d like you to leave now,” he says instead. “I want to sleep.”

Ivan shrugs. “Fine,” he says. He has done his best. “Good night.”

He turns and makes his way to the door. Probably he would not have heard the boy’s response had the rain not chosen that moment to ease. The word is softly spoken, but it drops into the sudden silence like a stone into deep water.

“Dick.”

He stops with his hand on the doorknob. “What?”

Before English can answer, Ivan has cut across the space between them, the torchlight sending shadows chasing drunkenly around the room. Russians generally have less need for personal space than Western Europeans, but even so where he ends up standing is far too close. Much closer than is acceptable for two virtual strangers. His teeth are only a whisper away from the six shiny beads which hang at the boy’s throat. So close he could bite them between his teeth. Most men would retreat instinctively at the instrusion. English doesn’t retreat, but he does stand very still.

“What did you say to me, little boy?” Ivan insists gently. At this distance he is close enough to smell the boy’s wet skin. He smells like green things and rain and a little salty, like sea-wet grass.

English’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Nothing.”

“No?” Ivan leans closer and takes another sniff. This time he catches a trace of something different. Something acrid and burned. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

He sniffs for a third time, but whatever it is, it is gone. It is inconclusive, all of this. Balconies, ropes, fuse boxes, mobile phones. It is conjecture and shadows. “All right, then.” He steps backwards. “It’s late. Don’t let me keep you from your bed.”

He goes next to wake George and Lukas and inform them of the power cut. They greet the news with equanimity. They have both lived at the villa long enough for it not to be a surprise. Lukas goes to check the dogs; George to the kitchens and Ivan returns to his bed where he sleeps deeply until dawn.

 

* * *

 

After a few hours uninterupted sleep, he awakes in a far better mood. He dons a black singlet and shorts and makes his way outside. Usually, he exercises in his room, away from the heat, but the storm has cleared the air and when he arrives on the terrace he finds it is cool enough still to raise goose bumps on his shoulders. The sun has yet to break through the thick layer of morning cloud, and the air smells of wet stone and pine trees. A fresh wind is blowing across the bay and through the morning mist he sees the fishing boats are out in force, followed by a flock of attentive seagulls. He drapes his towel over the wall and begins working methodically through his daily routine - mostly stretches with some calisthenics, using his body weight to challenge himself. It is a simple routine, but effective, and it has the advantage it can be done anywhere: a hotel room, a prison cell, a submarine.

He is about two thirds done and perspiring lightly, when a prickle up the back of his neck tells him he is being watched. He continues anyway. It feels good to stretch his body. He has spent too much of this assignment sitting at his desk, his muscles crave a different stimulus. He finishes with one final flourish: a series of backflips hands and feet landing one neatly after another, and as he uprights himself for the last time, he espies the English boy standing at the villa entrance.

“I thought the dogs might still be out,” he says when he realises he has been spotted.

Ivan picks up his towel and wipes off his gritty hands. “Lukas brought them in because of the weather.”

“Oh.” Taking the words as an invitation, English picks his way amongst the puddles and perches on the edge of a sunlounger, positioning himself away from the pool of water which has gathered in its centre. He is wearing a light grey hooded top over his swimming trunks and flip-flops on his feet. The top is zipped all the way up to his chin against the chill, and the hood is pulled up over his head. Ivan has never liked the current trend of wearing sportswear as casual attire, but he has to admit on a day like today, it looks cosy.

“You’re pretty flexible,” English observes, breaking the silence. “Did you do a lot of athletics when you were young?”

When he was young? Ivan feels some of his good mood melt away. He is not yet forty, but of course, to eighteen that is practically decrepit. He rests his left leg on the wall and bends over it, feeling the stretch run along his hamstring and down the inner thigh of his supporting leg. “I trained at the Bolshoi,” he says over his shoulder. “There was a shortage of male leads for a time. All boys who showed an aptitude for gymnastics had to spend a year there. It was the law.”

There’s a long pause broken only by the cries of sea birds, then English’s mouth twitches. “That’s a joke, right?”

Ivan swaps legs and bends again. Of course, it is a joke. And a joke at English’s expense. The audition process for a traineeship at the Academy has always been intensively competitive. The idea that it would need to conscript pupils is absurd. But the Bolshoi is the only Russian ballet company most foreigners have heard of, and few know anything about the USSR beyond it being an authoritarian state. “I guess I’m just a funny guy,” he says.

“I guess you are,” English agrees with a surprising lack of heat. Ivan glances beneath his outstretched arm to see what has distracted him and pauses in surprise. English is not admiring the pearl white wisps of cloud which shroud the pine trees, nor the gulls wheeling overhead. Instead his eyes have come to rest on a much closer target. He is looking at where the material of Ivan’s shorts has been pulled tight by his stretching.

The moment lasts only a second, then the boy is just as assiduously studying the fishing boats, his ears slightly pink. Ivan finishes his stretches, picks up his towel and rubs himself down, before slinging it around his neck and leaning deliberately against the wall. He does not believe in showing off his body. It is what it is. But with his muscles hard from the work out, and his damp T shirt clinging to his chest it is clear that he is not in too shabby a condition for a man of his advanced years. “So,” he says, “what gets you up so bright and early?”

The boy’s ears go pinker yet. Now they are almost the shade of his swimming trunks. “I wanted to apologise. About last night.”

For the second time in two minutes, Ivan is taken by surprise. He takes the end of his towel and uses it to blot his face while he thinks. “Really?” he says when he is done, not attempting to hide his scepticism.

The boy’s eyelashes lower at his tone. “I shouldn’t have said what I did,” he mumbles. “I haven’t been sleeping very well, but still, l shouldn’t have said it.” His dark gaze returns to Ivan’s face. His eyes are like limpid pools, guileless and innocent.

 

_“Limpid?”_

_“Yes?” Alex’s eyes_ are _limpid on occasion. Usually just before he is about to unleash mayhem, but Yassen refrains from sharing that piece of intelligence. He prefers to have the prior warning._

_Alex remains silent. He is not sure about being limpid._

_“It means clear,” Yassen clarifies._

_“I know that. I just think it makes him sound a bit wet.”_

_“He is acting, of course.”_

“I see,” says Ivan. He has not slept well either these last few nights. Mostly because the boy’s nocturnal wanderings have kept him awake, but it seems churlish to mention it in the face of such soulful eyes.

“Are we okay?” English persists, shame-faced but determined.

Okay? Ivan considers. Certainly, between the two of them they appeared to have reached an impasse. The boy cannot breach the security system, but Ivan cannot prove categorically that he is not what he seems. And so - what? An uneasy truce, while they regroup? He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I cannot make you leave.”

This is not strictly true. The Grach is still in the top drawer of his desk, where it has been the last two nights. He could absolutely use it to make the boy leave, either on his own two feet or in a body bag. But he has been hired as a security consultant,  and the terms of this assignment do not involve killing.

“Right.” English hesitates but if he is hoping for a more enthusiastic response then he will wait a long time. “I’m going for a swim,” he says at last.

“The pool is right there,” Ivan agrees.

“Yeah.” Another pause, then English sheds his hoody and flip-flops in quick succession and plunges into the water in an uncharacteristically clumsy dive. Ivan does not envy him his choice. After the night’s storm, the surface is dotted with pine needles and dead insects, and the water will hardly be warm. Sure enough, the boy bobs to the surface with a yelp, but to his credit he recovers quickly and starts up a determined crawl.

Ivan watches him complete a couple of laps, then makes his way back to the villa. It has been an informative exchange. Less so, for the apology - he trusts the boy’s new doe-eyed incarnation as little as he trusts the old one - but for that sudden, quickly hidden, flash of interest. Desire can be faked, of course, it is the oldest game in the book. But that it has appeared at all, significantly complicates matter. Ivan has been operating on the premise that the boy has little interest in engaging directly with Andreas and will not be waiting around for his return. But perhaps that confidence is misplaced.

He turns in the doorway, his eyes roving restlessly across the empty terrace and the lone swimmer tracking up and down the pool, until they alight on the discarded hoody. And there, poking out of the corner of one pocket is the boy’s phone. He waits until English reaches the far side of the pool, then heads swiftly towards it. But before he can even round the corner, the boy has burst from the water like a porpoise rising from the waves and is standing on the flagstones blocking his way.

It is quite the feat, really. With an act like that, he could have his own show at Sea World.

Ivan comes to a halt before he can be dripped upon. “A problem?”

“Colder than I expected,” English explains. He hugs his arms around his waist and shivers, as though this little charade will make Ivan forget he has just seen him cross the pool in near-Olympic time.

“I can tell.”

English’s eyebrows knit together as he tries to decipher that utterance. Then it appears to dawn on him that he is not wearing many clothes, and what he is are wet and sticking to him. He picks up his hoody and pulls it on hurriedly. “I’m going to go in - try to warm up.”

“You do that,” Ivan says and stands aside, conceding temporary defeat. He has been right from the start. The answer is on the boy’s phone, if he had started to doubt it then that little performance has left him in no doubt. He simply needs a different way to get access to it.

 

_“Are they actually going to do anything?” Alex asks when it becomes clear that this week's installement is at an end._

_Yassen frowns. “Do anything?” He thinks they have been doing quite a lot of things. Phone hacking. Sabotage. Early morning exercises._

_“It’s been four weeks and they’ve barely even touched yet. All they're doing is wandering around staring at each other.”_

_“It has been four days and they are getting to know each other.”_

_A dubious silence greets this remark. Privately, Yassen blames the internet. Everyone wants instant gratification these days, they don’t understand that anticipation brings its own rewards. But, if Alex is eager for things to move on, then it will not be too great a hardship to oblige him._

_“Next time, something will happen,” he promises. “Something I think you will like.”_

_“Yeah?” says Alex, suddenly focussed._

_“Oh, yes,” says Yassen, and before Alex can speak further, he disconnects the call. Anticipation, after all, brings its own rewards._


	6. The pearls of Aphrodite

Constantine’s uncle, the electrician, arrives after breakfast, spends twenty minutes in the kitchen looking at the fuse box and reappears shaking his head. This repair will require specialist parts which need to be sent over on a ferry from the neighbouring island. Fortunately, he has a friend who can arrange this for them, but until then the power must stay off. The fuse box is wrapped in yellow hazard tape. George begins a stocktake of the fridges to determine what will need eating first and dispatches Constantine into town to buy up all the ice he can find. Lukas takes out a long-handled net and begins skimming the pool.

Ivan sits in his office with his door ajar and waits. Unlike his colleagues, the loss of power has left him at a loose end. The fans are not working, the CCTV cameras are not working and while he has a backup powerpack for his laptop he does not want to waste it on non-essential tasks. The hours tick by. The English boy is still in his bedroom and who knows what he is doing in there? The lack of CCTV is annoying but it is a good lesson for Ivan. He has become a little too reliant on electronic tools, it is time for him to rely again on his own eyes and ears, like in the old days.

It is lunch time before he hears a door open and the soft slap of flip-flops making their way down the corridor. English is in his swimming trunks and heading for the pool. Ivan gathers up a sheaf of papers from his desk and follows silently behind, emerging onto the terrace in time to hear the tail end of a conversation.

“No more swimming,” Lukas is saying. “Not until the pump is back on.”

English gives a grimace and brushes his tussled hair back from his forehead. “I guess I’ll just read my book.”

I guess you will, Ivan thinks. The boy had claimed he will not be bored, but with no internet and now no swimming pool, there really is very little to do.

Lunch is a meagre affair, a selection of wilting salads which need eating, although George promises them something better for dinner. They serve themselves, then take their usual seats at opposite sides of the pool and bring out their respective reading materials. Ivan’s papers turn out to be the instruction manual for the defunct data extraction toolkit, not exciting reading at the best of times and less than useless to him now. English is better prepared with his Greek phrase book. He flips through it slowly while Ivan shades in all the ‘a’s in his papers then all the ‘b’s, all the ‘d’s and so on, as the sun slowly makes its way across the sky and they both pretend to be fully occupied.

The boy gives up the charade first. He tosses aside his book with an exasperated huff and begins pacing the terrace, prowling back and forth with restless energy. Ivan watches over the top of his papers, but says nothing, contenting himself with observing how the boy’s shorts slide low on his hips. Whoever he is, this Thomas James Barber, he fits his skin very nicely. After five minutes of pacing the boy goes over to the terrace wall to look out at the view. Ivan doubts there will be much there to interest him in the hot silent hours after lunch. Sure enough, after a few minutes he turns back to the terrace, and stretches, flashing his armpits to the world. The little red shorts slip another perilous centimetre lower and the tip of Ivan’s tongue creeps out to wet his lips. It would take very little effort to tug loose that dangling drawstring and allow them to slide sweetly lower yet.

Perhaps fortunately, before he can pursue that train of thought a sudden bustle shatters the silence which has blanketed the villa. Twice a week, two women come up from the village to clean and help with the cooking. They have arrived now, and having visited George in the kitchen, come out to sit on the terrace. They bring with them four bulging bags of vegetables, including one full of peas which they begin shelling into a large shallow bowl. When they see English, they beckon him over, making clucking noises as one might encourage a small child, or a favoured pet. After an initial hesitation, he takes a seat alongside them and begins shelling peas too, responding to their barrage of questions with a combination of mime and halting Greek. The tension leaves Ivan’s shoulders. The next few hours are his. No matter what mischief the boy has planned, he will not get away with much under the watchful eyes of two Greek _yia-yias._

He returns inside, not to his office but to his bedroom. There is something in there which he wants. During a particularly dull week at the villa he had discovered a series of glossy art books in the games room, shelved carelessly amongst the car magazines. As best he can judge, they date from the mid-nineteen eighties, and are probably West German in origin, but it is a moot point since they contain no text. He can only imagine they were an unwanted gift, since their content does not reflect Andreas’s tastes. In any case, they live in Ivan’s room now and he turns to them when circumstances require. These days there is far more explicit video material available online in rampant technicolour, but Ivan had grown up in simpler times and he has simpler tastes.

There are four books in total, following a seasonal theme - spring in the wildflower meadows, summer in the Alpine Lakes, autumn in the forest, and so on. They start off innocently enough, pictures of athletic young men with highlighted eighties hair, disporting themselves in a variety of healthful activities: hiking, or playing volleyball, or open-water swimming. The pictures could easily be mistaken for a brochure for some wholesome holiday camp where everyone eats muesli for breakfast and drinks fruit tea. But as the pages progress, the illusion fades and the young men begin to lose first their interest in sports and then most of their clothing. The final pages are, in their own way, every bit as rampant and technicolour as anything the internet can offer but, in truth, Ivan finds these sections less rewarding. It is the middle third which merits the closest study.

He selects today the summer edition and turns directly to a page which he has had in mind for some time. It shows a tranquil lake in early summer. Emerald trees grow down to the water’s edge, and the water is clean and clear. Above, the sky is a sheer summer blue with a few wispy clouds drifting across it, and hazy sunlight slants across the water. The only sign of human life is a young man who has waded into the lake and is standing with his back to the camera, admiring the view. He appears to have mislaid his swimming trunks. Or perhaps he has been hiking and the water looked so nice it tempted him in. He clearly spends a lot of time out of doors: his back is a warm gold and a tan line runs around his waist. The lake is not very deep and the water barely reaches his hips, revealing between tan line and water a few narrow centimetres of secret paler skin.

Ivan looks at the picture for a few seconds, then lays the book carefully on the bed, locks his door and undresses, folding his clothes neatly onto a waiting chair. When he is ready, he kneels on the bed and resumes his perusal in more depth, admiring first the breadth of the swimmer’s shoulders, then the smooth sweep of his back, his lean waist, the faint dimples at the base of his spine, and lastly his backside rising from the water, all shiny wet and round.

On the next page, the young man is looking over his shoulder towards the photographer, pushing back the hair from his forehead with one hand as he turns. The hair beneath his arm is several shades darker than the bleached blond tresses which cascade about his face-

 

_“A problem, Alex?”_

_“No, just something in my throat.”_

_“If you’re sure.”_

Ivan likes his face less than his body; truth be told he has a weak chin and a slightly vapid smirk. But his body- yes, his body is very much to Ivan’s tastes, and the position highlights the smooth muscles of his bicep very well. Whoever took these photographs had talent, he thinks, not for the first time. They are a cut above standard pornographic fare. Care has been taken with the play of light and shade, and there is a pleasing balance to the composition. The colour saturation and contrast are as not as good as modern film but there is something about the faded light and outdated colouring which gives the pictures a warmly nostalgia glow. With Perestroika and Glasnost there had been an inflow of immigrants from the Eastern bloc into West Germany. It is not inconceivable that some famous photographer from behind the Iron Curtain had resorted to taking pornographic photographs to support themselves once they arrived in the West. But this is all conjecture, the name of the photographer is not recorded anywhere in the book and neither are those of the models. All they have left behind them are these images.

After a moment, Ivan moves on. In the third picture the swimmer has turned fully towards the camera and his expression is more inward-looking, as if caught unaware in some private moment. He has hair on his chest too. It is another thing which Ivan appreciates about these books. None of the young men are waxed smooth of all hair. Their bodies are strong and athletic, but not bulging with unnecessary muscle like a sack of walnuts. He is not so naïve to think they appear as nature intended, but they give a pretty good approximation of it. This page is one of his favourites. The swimmer has a broad chest with tight brown nipples and strong shoulders and Ivan likes looking at it. Better yet, is the way the hair on his chest narrows as it dips down his torso, inviting the viewer’s gaze downwards. Below his navel it begins to flare out again, darkening as it disappears into the water, and yes, those few centimetres of tightly curling hair there are very interesting to Ivan, hinting as they do at what lies below.

The next picture presents a shift in tone. In it the model is hard, his erection proudly breaching the surface of the water like a spear. Truthfully, the effect is rather comical, like a miniature Loch Ness monster emerging from the depths but, then again, sex does not always have to be so terribly serious. It can be playful at times too. In any case, the swimmer’s cock is hard and thick, and the foreskin partway retracted, revealing a glossy pink head. Ivan certainly enjoys looking at that. Normally this is the place where he lingers longest. In the final pages the swimmer emerges from the lake and masturbates while lying on the strand, all the time wearing a slightly pained expression as though he is resting upon something thorny. The sense of dreamy eroticism evaporates, to be replaced by something more straightforwardly pornographic. Today though, he returns to the first page, settling back on his haunches and letting his eyes rove across the picture, taking in once more the swimmer’s broad shoulders, his strong back and lean hips, the pleasing V-shape of his body which draws the eye downwards to the smooth curve of his backside and there, as it enters the water, the beginnings of the shadowed secret furrow which divides it.

With one hand, he begins to stroke his cock, a slow, unhurried push and pull. It doesn’t take much effort to put himself in the picture. To imagine the chill of the water, the slipperiness of the stones beneath his bare feet, the warm breeze on his skin and the green smell of the trees. To imagine what it would be like to press himself against the swimmer’s back and feel the smooth warmth of his skin. First, he would bite the thick muscle of his shoulder. Then, he would brush the blond curls from the nape of his neck and bury his nose in the revealed hollow. He would stroke the silky hair beneath his armpits, warm and a little musky, and run his fingers over-

 

_This time, unmistakably, Alex is laughing._

_“What’s so funny?”_

_“Armpits again.”_

_Yassen’s thumb hovers above the call disconnect button. He had not realised he was providing a comedy show. “You think that’s funny?”_

_“No,” says Alex at once, which is clearly a lie, but there is a note to his voice which prevents Yassen from disconnecting immediately._

_“You don’t like armpits,” he deduces._

_“I don’t mind armpits,” says Alex. “I don’t have strong feelings about them either way.” And then in response to Yassen’s continuing silence: “_ You _like armpits.”_

_“Sometimes,” he concedes. Not all armpits. A stranger’s unwashed armpits are, of course, repulsive. But on a clean and otherwise attractive person, there is surely a great deal there to like? The hair is soft and silky and the skin warm and sensitive. It is an intimate place. A place that not everyone is allowed to see and touch. And scent is important. People like to think they have evolved beyond such base instincts, but they have not. Even freshly washed, some people smell better to Yassen than others, and when someone smells right then that is an important part of their appeal. He hadn’t realised these were controversial opinions. But then again, this is not a conversation he has ever had cause to have before._

_“I don’t mind that you like them,” Alex says. And there is that note again. An underlying warmth._

_“You don’t?”_

_“No.”_

_“Huh.” Alex is confusing at times._

_“So, what happens next?” Alex asks, when the pause has extended a half dozen heartbeats._

_“Well, I don’t know. Maybe you should tell a story. Maybe your story will be better.”_

_“But I like your story.”_

_“Do you?”_

_“Yes.”_

_Yassen defrosts a fraction. “All right.”_

 

Ivan’s hand slows almost to a halt. Then with sudden decision, he flicks to the end of the book. Mystery and eroticism are all very well, but what his libido demands now is something more basic. The photograph he is seeking is on the penultimate page. There is a similar picture in each book. It has been taken by a different photographer and there is no artistry or playfulness to it at all. With almost clinical precision, it shows a naked young man kneeling on the floor against a photography backdrop. He is on his hands and knees, facing away from the camera with his back hollowed and his legs spread. His head is hidden, he is deliberately anonymous: the viewer can place any face they want on this body, or none at all. Ivan stares, narrow-eyed at the picture, and his hand returns to his cock of its own volition.

 _Look_ , the picture says to him. _Look at him. Look at his spread thighs. Look at his balls, see how they have pulled up tight and round to his body. Look at the furrow of his backside, dusted with light brown hair and spread open for you to see. Look there, at his little pink ring, all shy and closely furled. Imagine what it would be like to fuck him. Imagine how tight he’d be. How hot he’d be. How eager._ Ivan looks. He doesn’t blink. But for the rapid movement of his hand, his body is motionless, tense as a drawn bowstring. Only at the last moment does his face contort, and then he is coming, unable to hold back anymore, coming all over the page, splashing his pearly seed across the model’s thighs, his hollowed back, his round backside and the tender pink soles of his feet.

 

* * *

 

He lies still for a few moments, his skin slick with sweat now the crisis is over. Then, when his heart has resumed its normal tempo, he rises and walks languidly into the bathroom. Andreas does not believe in pampering his staff. There is nothing as grand as a shower cubicle inside, just a short piece of pipe jutting from the wall, fed from a rainwater tank on the roof. It is a primitive enough arrangement, but it requires no electrical power and the tepid water feels good on his skin, as it cascades over his head and shoulders. When he has finished rinsing the sweat from his body, he stands naked by the shutters and lets the warm breeze dry him. The nagging tension of the past few days has eased to be replaced by a sense of well-being. He stretches luxuriously, then dresses and makes his way down to the terrace.

The unexpected sound of laughter greets his arrival. In his absence someone has dragged a table tennis table from its hiding place in the basement and set it up under the colonnade. Constantine has returned from town with his cargo of ice and been prevailed upon to take part in an impromptu tournament. Ivan takes his usual seat beneath the pergola and watches them battle it out. Constantine is a keen player but the English boy has fast reflexes and is a resourceful, inventive opponent. He wins the first two games, but then his concentration seems to slip. He fluffs his serve and his returns go wide, sending the ball skittering across the flagstones and into the pool. Once they fish it out, Constantine pulls his way back to two games all. The final game is harder fought; but eventually Constantine hits a series of blistering serves and wins the match three games to two. A triumph of experience over youth.

Ivan goes into the kitchen in search of a drink and finds an insulated cool box filled with crushed ice is propping open the door. Cans of soda and bottles of beer stud its surface. Someone has been very busy, it appears. He picks out a beer and leans against the door frame, considering what he has just seen. It takes a good player to beat Constantine. It takes a better one to deliberately lose to him, but he will stake his reputation that the boy had just thrown the match. But to what end? Having failed with Ivan is he trying to ingratiate himself with other members of Andreas’s staff? If so, he has not done his homework; Constantine has no access to Andreas’s private quarters and in any case is devoted to his wife. Or perhaps, he reflects, there is a simpler explanation. English is young, and a long way from home. Constantine is twenty-three. Not so very much older in the grand scheme of things. Maybe the boy just wants to make friends. Ivan had wanted friends at that age too. He remembers the sense of loneliness still, the craving for the approval of his peers. It had been a weakness. One which he’d had to work hard at to overcome.

 

_Yassen pauses fractionally, thinking of John Rider, but that is another story, for a different day._

 

No nearer to an answer, he returns to find the erstwhile rivals sitting with their feet dangling in the pool and engaged in a halting conversation. When they see Ivan, they beckon him over.

“Do you want to play?” Constantine asks. He speaks passable English, although he is mostly too shy to admit it. “We could try winner stays on?”

Ivan takes a long, appreciative pull of his beer. It is a special Czech brand which Andreas has imported from the continent at great expense and it kisses his throat like a lover. He doesn’t usually drink when he is working, but tonight he has decided to slacken some of his self-imposed rules. “Not my game.”

“Why, what’s your game?” English asks. He has changed back into jeans and a clean white T-shirt and he looks every inch the carefree surfer boy.

I might ask you the same thing, Ivan thinks. “Drinking vodka,” is what he says.

English laughs. “I know better than to play a Russian at that game.”

Ivan takes another drink, and doesn’t answer, watching how his teeth flash and his brown eyes sparkle with mirth. He doesn’t laugh very often, their English guest. Probably it is just as well. He would be devastating if he did.

After a soda break, the tournament goes on. Best out of seven, then best out of fifteen until George calls them in to the kitchen. Since there is still no message from Andreas, he has fired up the wood-burning stove and cooked the food ordered for his return before it can spoil. A lamb stew has burbled in the oven all afternoon, giving off wafts of garlic and oregano. With it, George serves a tureen of peas, a bowl of hard yellow cheese to sprinkle and several bottles of the local red wine. Constantine sets up a table beneath the pergola, and lights candles to keep the insects away. All at once, the evening takes on a festive feel. Even Lukas, enticed by the scent of cooking and without the internet to distract him, decides to join them.

At first, they restrict themselves to comments about the food, but as their tongues are loosened by the wine, they turn to football, the universal topic of conversation for a group of men with little in common. A bottle later and talk begins to flow more naturally. Lukas tells a filthy but amusing tale about his time working on board a Dutch container boat, which Constantine translates for George, his ears turning pinker with every development. After that, Ivan takes up the conversational baton and gives a heavily edited account of life on a submarine. Experience has taught him to have a selection of anecdotes ready for these occasions. They are not always true, but that matters less than the delivery. English contributes a few rueful remarks about his voyage out from Southampton, but before he can be pressed further he steers the conversation onto current affairs. They discuss the Greek economy, Brexit, Putin and then onto lighter topics: the British royal wedding; the next World Cup, and the recent audacious theft of the famous Delaney pearls from an exhibition in Milan. Somewhat to his surprise, Ivan finds he is enjoying himself. It has been a long time since he has eaten a meal in company. Even the smoke from George’s cigarette annoys him less than it usually would. Rather than lingering, it spirals silently into the evening sky and disappears.

When the main meal is done, George brings out coffee, a plate of crescent-shaped almond biscuits, and a bottle of ouzo. They push back their chairs and stare up at the sky. It is a clear warm night. The first stars are beginning to appear, casting their milky light across the hillside.

“The pearls of Aphrodite,” says George in heavily accented English gesturing up at the stars. He lights up another cigarette and begins a story in Greek, while Constantine translates. It is a long and convoluted tale, and requires several side conversations, as Constantine hunts for the right words. After fifteen minutes, Lukas excuses himself to see to the dogs, but Ivan stays where he is, topping up their glasses with more ouzo. His own glass stays untouched; though he lifts it occasionally to his lips. The beer and a little wine with the meal have been sufficient to pleasantly soften the edges of the world. He takes one of the biscuits instead and holds it in his mouth, letting its sweetness melt on his tongue as George’s account continues. It is not a version which Ivan has heard before, most likely, it is a local variant. The goddess of love, born from an egg; or is it a pearl? George’s language is rich and complex and Constantine seems unsure. Perhaps some of the details are lost in translation. Or perhaps it is just the nature of such tales that they grow and evolve in the telling. When he was a child his grandmother had used to tell similar meandering stories, before her memory had left her.

 

_Yassen frowns. It has been a long time since he had thought about his grandmother, and yet here she is again, twice in three weeks. It is very strange. But Alex hasn’t noticed and so after a moment he goes on._

 

“And that is why Greek brides wear pearls,” Constantine concludes huskily. Full night has fallen. The candles are low and the bottle of ouzo is empty.

There is a pause, then English starts and sits bolt upright. His hair is tousled, and his lips stained purple. “Sorry, what?”

“To keep them from crying,” George explains slowly in English, as though the answer is obvious.

“Oh.” English’s brow furrows. He glances towards Ivan for enlightenment but receives no help there. Ivan holds his gaze and takes a small sip of ouzo, smiling slightly. After a moment English looks away.

“I should be going,” Constantine says. “My family will be expecting me.”

“A fine story, and a fine meal,” Ivan says politely. He helps stack up the dishes then walks over to the terrace wall. There is a village on the headland across the bay, hidden behind the pines. During the day it is all but invisible, but at night pinpricks of light can be seen through the trees, mirroring the stars above. He inhales the scent of warm earth, pine resin and the sea, and waits. He does not have to wait long. The slap of flip-flops, tells him he has company.

“The wine-dark sea,” says English softly.

Normally, the triteness of the reference would annoy him, but the good food and the good wine have softened Ivan’s mood. “Yes,” he admits.

Taking the response as an invitation, English comes to stand alongside him, resting his forearms on the wall and looking out across the bay. “Nice night.”

“Yes,” says Ivan again, and waits to see where the conversation will lead them.

“Did you hear that?” English says suddenly.

Ivan listens, but all he can hear is the wind in the pines, the roll of the waves, and the ever-present drone of the cicadas. “What?”

“Bats.”

He glances over his shoulder and sees the dark shapes swooping about the eaves of the villa, only visible as patches of blackness against the starlit sky. “No,” he says. “Only the young can hear bats.”

English turns so his back rests against the warm stone of the wall. All his movements are studied, careful, and Ivan realises with a flash of amusement that their young guest is quite drunk. The soft, red wine is deceptively strong. “Why, how old are you?” he asks with elaborate unconcern.

Ivan laughs silently. “Oh, very old. Ancient.”

Behind them, Constantine calls out his farewells. He has walked the path down to the village often enough to know the way blindfold. George replies and shuffles out of the kitchen and up to his rooms. With no electric light there is no point in trying to clear up the kitchen now. He has put the dishes to soak and will see to them in the morning.

All of a sudden, they are alone.

Some people in Ivan’s line of work like to subdue their targets by chemical means. GHB is a popular choice: easy to administer and difficult to detect. But while sedation has its uses, it is not Ivan’s favoured approach. Unless you synthesize the compound yourself, you can never be sure exactly what is in it, and judging the correct dosage is trickier than the spy stories make it seem. In particular, if your target has been drinking then it is surprisingly easy to kill them by mistake.

 

 _“And you wouldn’t want that,” Alex_ _says dryly._

_“No,” Yassen agrees. He would not. Killing people is what he does. Sometimes bystanders are killed too. That is regrettable, but if you are going to spend too long agonising about it then you are probably in the wrong job. Killing your target by mistake, though, that is more than regrettable: it is sloppy. And sloppy assassins rarely live long. But, since it seems unlikely Alex wants to hear more about the thousands of careful judgements which Yassen makes in his day to day life, he continues without elaborating._

In any case, if you are prepared to exercise patience then there are less risky ways to subdue your mark. Men are not so very complicated. Good food, a little alcohol, a little quiet conversation and eight times out of ten you will have them eating out of your hand in no time. A full belly is a powerful sedative, after all. Especially if you have been living on short rations for the past few days.

It has been a pleasant evening it is almost a shame to bring it to an end. Still, Ivan has a job to do and time is ticking on. He yawns delicately, covering his mouth with his hand, and as he expects it proves contagious. Beside him, English follows suit with a series of yawns which seem almost to split his head. Ivan waits for him to finish then takes his cue. “Time for bed.”

English’s chin jerks upwards from where it has been drooping towards his chest. “What?”

He hides his amusement with difficulty. From the boy's startled expression, anyone would think Ivan had announced his intention to ravish him against the terrace wall. “You look tired.”

“I’m not drunk!” says English, in the too-loud voice of someone who almost certainly is.

“No, no,” he says diplomatically. “But a little sleepy, I think. What time is it now?”

English pulls his phone from his pocket and squints at it, moving his hand back and forth until he is able to focus. “Almost midnight.”

“So late?” He waits until the phone is fumbled away before continuing. “We better go inside now, before Lukas lets out the dogs.”

This suggestion, at least, seems to register. Together they begin to meander their way across the terrace, but the journey is not without incident. Halfway across and the boy trips over his own flip-flops, almost toppling into the pool. Only Ivan’s quick reflexes save him from a dunking.

“Careful,” he chides. It will benefit nether of them if the phone gets a bath.

English nods, then begins to slump sideways again. Alcohol can take you like that, especially if you are an inexperienced drinker. Sitting down you feel fine, but as soon as you start moving about and pumping the blood to your brain, it hits you like a hammer. By then, of course, it is too late, all you can do is sleep it off and hope your drinking companions are not the type to take advantage of your compromised state.

“Here we go. Lean on me.” He slides his shoulder beneath the boy’s dangling arm and grasps him around the waist. So counterpoised they wend slowly across the flagstones. In truth, Ivan could hoist him across his shoulders and carry him up to his room with little difficulty and their progress would be very much quicker. But the boy is a pleasant enough armful and it is no great hardship to keep a steadying hand on his flank and steer him to his bed. He comes along readily enough once he has the general idea, although there is a marked tendency to go soft about the knees when he is not concentrating.

With a combination of coaxing and praise they make it up the stairs. The boy is appealing like this, all flushed warm and sleepy, Ivan concedes as they arrive on the landing. It would be interesting to tumble him into bed and see what his cock will do after a little petting. Maybe nothing. He is tired and has drunk more than he has a head for. But, then again, he is young and virile. Perhaps he might revive with proper attention, if one were patient and careful and knew what they were doing. In any case, Ivan would like to find out. It has been a long time since he has touched anyone intimately, cupped his hand around hot flesh and tightly curled hair. It has been longer still since he has had his arm wrapped around someone’s waist like this, felt their warmth and solidity and the way their muscles shift as they move. English smells of oregano and aniseed and his own warm skin, much more vital and alive than any picture book could ever be, and all at once Ivan wants, quite intensely, to push him up against the landing wall and kiss his wine-stained mouth.

He breathes in slowly, letting himself acknowledge the strength of the impulse, and then breathes out again letting it go. The dark Greek wine is stronger than it appears.

They amble down the dark landing, past his office and into English’s room. The boy is more asleep than awake now and barely murmurs when he is lowered onto the bed. Ivan removes his shoes and turns him onto his stomach, then sits on the edge of the mattress and waits. A low snoring begins almost at once, but there is no point in being hasty now and regretting it later. The shutters are open and the room is bathed in pearly starlight. A pale watery light, but bright enough for his needs.

When the snoring has softened into a slower, deeper cadence, he turns his attention to the boy’s slumbering form. The trouble with these baggy jeans is they make it easy for people like Ivan to take advantage. He slides the phone carefully out of the boy’s back pocket then takes his slack hand and presses his thumb to the screen. For a second nothing happens. Then the phone glows into life with a faint ping.

At last. Ivan scans through the icons. Contacts: a list of names and faces. He flicks through them rapidly but there is no easy way of verifying if they are legitimate. Text messages, the same. WhatsApp, he avoids. He doesn’t want any new messages appearing as read. The camera gallery is more interesting: pictures of ocean sunrises and sunsets and a few of boats in harbours. All very pretty and generic, no obvious landmarks to tie them to a particular place. Then, the Parthenon, the picture which everyone takes from the south-west corner. One or two of the Erechtheion and the Porch of the Caryatids. Next, some young people with bright shiny faces, sitting in a taverna, drinks before them. Greek lettering on the menus, purple bougainvillea cascading over the whitewashed walls. It looks like a nice party, but none of the photos have English in them: no selfies, no group shots. Maybe he prefers being the one behind the camera. Or maybe these are not his photographs at all but have been loaded onto the phone for the benefit of any interested viewers.

He flicks onwards and comes at last to somewhere more familiar. The marina with Andreas’s yacht moored in the background, the village square, the villa itself. His flicking thumb slows down. A picture of the view from the terrace, which happens to include Lukas cleaning the pool. Another of the main building which shows George standing by the kitchen doorway smoking a cigarette. A few of the main drive which also take in the dog run and Constantine washing the SUV. How nice that English takes such an interest in the villa’s staff. And then, himself, Ivan. Sitting with his laptop on the terrace and wearing sunglasses. The angle is bad and the bright sunlight has bleached out the details of his features. He would be impressed if anyone could identify him from it. And now some more, from a different perspective. Higher up and looking down on the pool. They have been taken from the boy’s room. And here is a whole series of Ivan doing his exercises: bending, stretching, handstands and all.

Well now. They say that young people are self-absorbed but this is clearly not true. Take this young man, for example. He has taken more pictures of Ivan than he has of the entire Acropolis. He is flattered to have attracted such attention, truly. Although he would also very much like to know where these pictures have been sent.

Still, he will not find an answer to that tonight. He closes the screen then clasps the boy’s shoulder with one hand while with the other he slips the phone back into his pocket. It is a technique he has learned from Shiatsu massage, a reassuring contact in one place which distracts from a more assertive contact in another. It works like a charm. The phone slide safely home and the boy barely stirs. He will wake up tomorrow morning hungover and regretful, but entirely unaware his files have been accessed.

 

_“That wouldn’t work,” Alex says._

_“Why not?”_

_“Well, for one thing, you’d need to enter a confirmation code. Otherwise you’d set off a logic bomb.”_

_“A logic bomb?”_

_“You know, a program which wipes all the files.”_

_He is correct, Yassen realises with a trace of chagrin. A thumbprint alone would not be enough. There would be addition security layers to protect against unauthorised access._

_“No operative would be issued a phone without anti-tamper features,” Alex adds, warming to his theme._

_“Maybe not,” Yassen concedes._

_“And for another thing, the latest iPhone has 3D facial recognition. It only unlocks if you’re awake and looking at the screen.”_

_All at once the age gap yawns between them like a chasm. Yassen had been twenty when SCORPIA had issued him his first mobile telephone. It had been almost the length of his forearm and more difficult to conceal than the Grach. More noteworthy also, in its own way. In the years since, he has seen them become smaller, more powerful and now ubiquitous. Still, he does not like these modern smartphones. The idea of a computer in his pocket, capable of recording his every move has limited appeal to him. When he has to use one he keeps it switched off until he needs it, but for the most part he sticks with refurbished Nokia 1100s, fifteen years old and the most simple and reliable handset ever made. They send and receive text messages; they make and take phone calls and they last up to 400 hours between charges. That is all the functionality that Yassen wants. But things are different for Alex. He has grown up with this technology. Smartphones, logic bombs and 3D facial recognition are second nature to him. It makes Yassen feel old. But he likes that Alex keeps him on his toes. And anyway, the conversation has given him another idea_.

_“Alright, so he doesn’t use the thumbprint. He does something else instead.”_

_“What?” Alex wants to know._

_“Be patient and I will tell you.”_

Ivan perches on the edge of the bed and waits patiently. There is no point in rushing things now and losing the prize. In any case he does not have to wait long; English begins snoring almost at once. When he hears it, he takes something from his pocket. It is a simple bag made of flexible metallic material and sealed with a magnetic clasp: a faraday bag. It blocks electromagnetic fields. Ivan uses it when he needs a smartphone to hand but wants to minimise the risk of tracking by isolating it from the network. It is a simple precaution, low technology, no moving parts to go wrong, and it folds away into almost nothing when it is not in use.

The trouble with baggy jeans is they make it very easy for unscrupulous people like Ivan to take advantage. He slides the phone out of the boy’s pocket then slips it into the waiting bag and seals it up. Thirty seconds pass and then a minute. The boy’s snoring softens into a slower, deeper cadence. After two minutes Ivan hears something else. A soft, forlorn cheeping, like a little lost bird. He turns his head slowly, pinpointing the source of the sound, then rises and on silent feet goes into the bathroom. The sound is coming from the sink. From the shelf above the sink. From the battery-operated toothbrush on the shelf above the sink. Working swiftly, Ivan disassembles it, unscrewing the head from the stem and easing the two pieces apart. Inside is some very complicated circuitry attached to a fine mental spindle. Ivan is not a dentist, but he does know an electronic lock pick when he sees one. This is not a vibrating mechanism designed for better dental hygiene, it is a state-of-the-art infiltration device which has been synced with the phone and is missing its friend. He reassembles the toothbrush and returns it to its place, then takes the phone from the bag and waits. As he expects, the cheeping stops.

In the mirror above the sink, his shadowed reflection considers him impassively, but internally Ivan is aware of twin, conflicting emotions. The first and most prominent is satisfaction at a job well done. Up until now, everything has been conjecture. There has always been the possibility, however faint, that the English boy is exactly what he claims to be - a carefree, young deckhand working his way around the Greek islands during his summer break. But Ivan’s instincts have proved correct. These are not the tools of a deckhand, or even of a casual thief. This is a much more elaborate operation and the sophistication of the tools means the boy is not working on his own. The second is a faint disappointment. They have been dancing together, the two of them, these last few days, feeling out each other’s weaknesses and strengths. It has been the most interesting thing that has happened to him all summer. But now their dance is over. It is time to move things on to their natural conclusion.

There is a bottle of drinking water by the sink. He picks it up, flushes the toilet to provide a cover for his absence and returns to the bedroom. English stirs from his slumber, disturbed by the sound of the flush, and is looking about with bleary confusion.

“I brought you some water,” Ivan says.

“Oh.” English sits up and seizes the bottle from him, drinking eagerly. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He sits once more on the side of the bed. The phone is in his pocket and the final part of this manoeuvre is to return it to its home before the boy realises it is gone.

English sets the empty bottle on the floor beside the bed and gives him a curious look. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

The boy stares at him owlishly. The brevity of the answer seems to have annoyed him. He pushes back the unruly curls from his forehead with an impatient hand. “You don’t have to stay and look after me, you know. I can take care of myself.”

He sounds so world-weary, so jaded despite his tender years, that Ivan smiles despite himself. “Is that so?”

The smile was a mistake. A mulish look enters English’s eyes. “Yeah.”

“Of course,” Ivan says soothingly, but his words have the opposite to intended effect.

“I’m not a child!” the boy exclaims and, moving more quickly than Ivan would have credited given his inebriated state, lunges towards him. Before he knows it, there is an arm around his shoulders and an eager mouth is seeking his.

Surprise holds him immobile for a split second. It springs from a combination of two things. Firstly, from the sheer speed of events. He had known the boy was quick, but really he is very quick. When he wants to be, he is quicker than Ivan and not many people are as quick as that. Secondly, from the unexpected sensation of warm lips pressed to his. It has been a while since Ivan has been on the receiving end of such unfettered enthusiasm - his amorous exchanges tend to be a little more negotiated - and this approach, fumbling and urgent as it is, stirs him in a way that a more polished advance would not.

But it is only for a split second, then he is disentangling them before the kiss can develop into something further. “Oh no. No, puppy, no. Not a good idea.”

“Puppy?” English jerks away, his expression almost comically offended.

Ivan shrugs. He knows many worse words. Russian, in particular, can be very inventive in that respect. “You’re drunk,” he says, abandoning any attempts at diplomacy. “And you’re making a fool of yourself. Go to sleep.”

The boy’s expression grows stormy. His pride has been hurt. He does not like being treated like a puppy. He thinks of himself as a big dog. Well, he is wrong. There is only one big dog in this room and English is looking at him. But somewhat to Ivan’s surprise, the boy has enough sense of self-preservation not to argue further. Instead he rolls away onto his side and thumps his head onto the pillow. “Fine.”

“Good boy.” Ivan squeezes his shoulder with one hand, and with the other slides the phone gently home. English is already more than half comatose and barely reacts. He will wake in the morning hungover and regretful, but entirely unaware his cover has been blown.

 

_And that will do for tonight, Yassen decides. Today has been a longer instalment. He has been talking for almost an hour. He waits for Alex to inform him that this version is equally lacking, that Ivan couldn’t have known the Faraday bag would work and had simply got lucky. But his most trenchant critic appears to have gone AWOL. “Alex?” he prompts._

_“Yeah?”_

_“What did you think?”_

_“Yeah, good.”_

_“You prefer this version?”_

_“Mm.”_

_Mm? It is not a particularly informative answer. Although, now he comes to think of it, for the last few minutes there has been very little sound from Alex at all, bar a few small creaks of his bed. Yassen cocks his head and listens. Still silence, but beneath it there is an impression of quiet but focussed activity. He frowns.This? This is what turns Alex on? Not the picture book, not even the awkward flirting after dinner, but a description of how Ivan had taken the phone? It is not what he would have chosen to focus upon, but unless his ears deceive him, Alex is finding the idea quite productive. Perhaps he finds spycraft stimulating._

_“Alex?” he prompts again._

_“Yeah?”_

_“What are you doing?”_

_“Don’t you know?” Alex mutters, smart-mouthed to the end._

_“Yes,” Yassen admits, “but I want to hear you say it.”_

_“Yeah, no. That’s not going to happen.”_

_“Oh.” He pauses, but true to his word Alex doesn’t expand although the creaking of the bedsprings intensifies in pace. Apparently, knowing Yassen can hear him turns him on. It is flattering, he supposes, but without any accompanying commentary not particularly rewarding from his point of view. Perhaps it is time to hurry things along. “Ah, little Alex,” he sighs._

_“What now?” Alex grinds out._

_He lowers his voice to the softest of growls. “Next time I see you, you’re going to get fucked. Hard.”_

_A sharp intake of breath then a choked-off expletive. Yassen permits himself a small smile and disconnects. That had worked out better than he’d planned._


	7. Andreas

The following morning Constantine’s uncle arrives early, proudly bearing a new fuse box. After two hours of careful work, the circuit breakers are reset. There’s a tense pause, then the pool pumps shudder back into life, the fridges begin to hum and the lights on Andreas’s door return to green. Normality is restored.

English misses all the excitement, arriving on the terrace too late to have breakfast, wearing only swimming trunks and sunglasses, with a T-shirt slung over one shoulder. He doesn’t acknowledge Ivan’s presence but heads straight to the now-slushy ice box, helping himself to a can of Coke before going to lie on a sunlounger. Once there he settles into a position which is as far from his usual casual post-swim flop as it is possible to be. One knee raised. One hand tucked behind his head and the other hanging by his side, dangling the can from his fingertips like some sulky, fifties starlet. _Look at me,_ the pose murmurs. _Look at how strong and vital and sexy I am. Look at my long legs and tousled tawny hair. Look at what you turned down._

Well, Ivan is not an unreasonable person, so he looks. It is not a problem for him to sit in the dappled shade, catch up on emails, and watch an attractive young man sunning himself. But as the slow minutes tick by it becomes clear his attention has left English with a dilemma. It is a hot day to be lying in the sun with a hangover and his position, although decorative, cannot be comfortable. If he moves, his carefully cultivated pose of aloof indifference will be shattered. If he stays as he is, at the very least his shoulder muscles will begin to cramp. Eventually pragmatism wins out over aethetics. With a huff of annoyance, English sets down the Coke and rolls onto his side, presenting an aggrieved back to the world.

Despite himself, Ivan smiles. It is a beautiful piece of acting. Truly, the boy is a pearl amongst men, the very image of an affronted teenager: all hurt pride and raging hormones. If Ivan were not being paid to deliver a service, then he would like to pick a piece of melted ice from the icebox, run its hard edge down the length of the boy’s spine, and kiss the resulting drops of melt water away. At which point, having attracted the attention which he is so assidiously courting, English would doubtless panic and bolt to the safety of his room.

The low buzz of the pager against his thigh interrupts Ivan’s ruminations. The villa’s gates have been activated. Abandoning his laptop, he arrives at the front door in time to see the SUV pulling into the driveway. Constantine gets out of the driver’s seat and opens the rear passenger side door. Yiannis, Andreas’s PA, gets out first but Ivan pays him no heed. His attention is on the man behind him.

Andreas is a handsome man in his late fifties, with bronzed skin and a small, neat moustache over a sensual, cruel mouth. He is smartly dressed in a blue blazer with brass buttons, stone-coloured trousers, tan deck shoes, and an open-necked blue shirt topped off by a navy and gold day cravat. The cravat is an affectation which can only be carried off by the very wealthy and the very insouciant, but since Andreas is both he wears it with ease. In sum, the outfit speaks of money and power, as it is supposed to, an impression which is enhanced by the waft of heavy aftershave which follows him from the car. It is a custom-made blend from a French fragrance house with a scent that manages to be both powerful and sexual while in no way attractive.

“Ivan,” Andreas says. His voice is deep and rich, and he speaks English with a slight American accent, courtesy of a year at college in South California. “How’s things?”

“We expected you on Sunday,” Ivan replies. “Constantine was waiting at the marina.”

Andreas gives the shrug of a man who has little care for the convenience of his underlings. “I had to go to the mainland. Inventory issues.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?” Ivan asks as he falls into step and follows him into the main building. The are only two types of ‘inventory issues’ which require Andreas’s personal attention: the arrival of an important shipment of illicit goods, or problems with the authorities. The former always leaves him in a good mood, the latter means he will require careful handling.

“Crossed wires. By the time I arrived the problem was resolved.” Andreas yawns, showing strong white teeth. “I ended up spending a couple of days with Dimitris, until the twittering about weddings drove me away.”

Dimitris is his business partner. He lives in Patras with his three daughters and beautiful bored wife. So bored, in fact, that on her last visit to the villa, she had propositioned first Constantine, then Ivan, then Lukas. Constantine and Ivan demurred but Ivan thinks Lukas may have obliged while showing her the pathway to the beach. The eldest daughter is recently engaged and planning her marriage to a minor German popstar. As a substitute uncle, Andreas is begrudgingly involved. But only begrudgingly. Unlike Dimitris, who dotes on his daughters, his mistress and his wife, Andreas is not a big fan of women.

“Anything happen here?”

“A power outage on Wednesday. It’s back on now,” Ivan says but his mind is on other matters. Crossed wires, or had someone arranged for Andreas to be out of the villa? And does it matter, anyway, now he is back? Andreas nods, unconcerned. Power cuts are not uncommon. “Also,” Ivan adds delicately, “you have a guest. An English boy?”

Now he has Andreas’s attention. “I do?”

“He arrived on Sunday, after the party.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tommy.”

Andreas’s dark brows knit together. “English, you say? I must have been more out of it than I thought.”

Ivan gives a thin-lipped smile. Andreas’s parties are notoriously hedonistic affairs. “Shall I get rid of him?” he asks. His tone is casual, but he is aware of a certain eagerness beneath the words. This can end now. He can pack the boy back off to town with Constantine before he and Andreas even meet, and Ivan need think no more of him. It is not entirely in the spirit of his contract but Ivan finds he doesn’t much care. The summer is nearing its end and once it is over he will move on, and the villa will be someone else’s concern.

“Let me see him first.”

Ivan beckons and they walk together to the arched entrance of the courtyard. After the dimness of the lobby, the brightness is dazzling. English is still lying on his side, facing away from them. With his golden skin and red shorts, he makes a pretty contrast to the white walls of the villa, and the blue of the sky. It is like a scene from some glossy lifestyle magazine: luxury Greek holiday accommodation, comes complete with lounging Adonis.

Andreas gives the philosophical shrug of a man who will not look a gift horse in the mouth. “Is he here for long?”

“A deckhand, apparently. Here for the summer.”

“Better yet,” Andreas murmurs.

“But,” Ivan continues, “I have some concerns about him.”

Andreas rolls his eyes impatiently. This is not the first time Ivan has expressed doubts about his habit of inviting strangers to stay. “Have any of the spoons gone missing?”

Ivan thinks of the lock pick, the power cut and the boy’s habit of midnight wandering. “Not yet,” he admits.

“Then why don’t you introduce us?”

Together, they walk out on to the terrace. Ivan’s footfalls are as soft as ever, but the leather soles of Andreas’s shoes ring out sharply on the stone paving. English turns his head at the sound and Ivan is not sure if he imagines a flash of shock in his eyes. If there is, then the boy recovers quickly. By the time they reach him, he has pulled on his T-shirt and risen to greet them.

“Andreas, hi!” he says taking off his sunglasses. “Good to see you again!” And he gives a smile every bit as bright and dazzling as the Greek sun.

“Yes, indeed,” says Andreas urbanely, looking him up and down. “Tommy, isn’t it? The deckhand.”

“That’s right!” says English. They shake hands. “You were telling me about the Azores. It sounds amazing!”

Ivan stands to one side and observes the exchange. The change in the boy’s demeanour is marked. His body language is open, his smile is wide, and the annoying upward inflection has returned to his voice. But half-hidden beneath his dangling fringe, his eyes remain unchanged, steady and watchful, if a little red-edged.

“It was.” Andreas hitches up his trousers to sit on the sunlounger and indicates the space by his side. After a second’s hesitation, English sits beside him. “And how have you found your time here? Has Ivan been keeping you well entertained?”

Ivan’s spine stiffens at the implication, but his expression remains unaltered.

“He doesn’t talk much,” says English lightly.

Andreas gives an indulgent smile and pats his knee. “Don’t take it personally. He is a man of few words.”

For the first time that day, English’s eyes turn directly to Ivan. “Don’t you get hot?” he says suddenly, “wearing all that black?”

Ivan shrugs. “Not really.”

“My Russian friend here is never hot. He has ice in his veins,” says Andreas.

“He must have,” says English. His smile has faded. Is he sulking still because Ivan turned him down last night? Or is he unhappy because Andreas’s hand remains resting upon his knee, like a large, malevolent spider?

Ivan returns his gaze. Is that a mute appeal in the boy’s eyes? English is not stupid. Ivan has made it apparent from day one that Andreas’s hospitality comes with strings attached. He cannot now expect Ivan, of all people, to rescue him from the consequences of his bad decisions.

Andreas looks between them, and a sour expression distorts his handsome face. He is not used to someone else taking up his guest’s attention. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he says abruptly. “Help Constantine unload the car. And the pool looks like it needs cleaning. I’m sure Tommy will want a swim later.” He smiles at the boy as he speaks and the hand on his knee squeezes lightly.

Though the dismissal is pointed, it is not resentment which pins Ivan to the flagstones. In fact, the emotion which burns in his gullet is so unfamiliar that it takes him a moment or two to identify. It is the acid twist of sexual jealousy, a burning rage that anyone dare lay their hands on what is rightfully Ivan’s. For a second, he fantasises about dragging Andreas by the cravat to the side of the pool and holding his head beneath the water until his thrashing stops. It would not be a quick death, but it would be an immensely satisfying one. Then, with an effort, he masters himself.

“I will speak to Lukas,” he says quietly and collecting his laptop he returns to the villa, leaving them alone to their  _tête-à-tête_.

 

* * *

 

For the rest of the day he stays in his office, eating lunch at his desk. With the internet back up it is time to update his records and begin to look for his next assignment. As he works, he keeps one eye on the CCTV feed. Andreas and the English boy sit and chat for a while but their solitude is soon disturbed when Lukas comes to clean the pool. It takes him some time. Ivan has mentioned the filters may need checking, a long and complicated procedure which requires lifting several of the flagstones. Driven away by the noise, Andreas calls Yiannis to his suite to catch up on work. English stays by the pool, only returning to the villa when the afternoon heat becomes intolerable. When he does, Ivan is waiting, intercepting him at the head of the stairs with a canvas bag in his hand.

“Hi,” the boy says quietly. “Look-”

Ivan dismisses the words with a wave of the hand. He is not here to exchange chit-chat. This is another aspect of Andreas’s life which he does not approve of but since Yiannis is busy, the task has fallen to him. “You’re having dinner with Andreas later,” he says. It is not a question. There is a very well-established routine for how these things go. Drinks, an early meal and then the photographs.

In the dim hallway, it is hard to see whether the boy blushes. “Yes, he invited me for something to eat.”

“Here,” says Ivan. “Take these.” He passes over the bag and English takes it uncomprehendingly. “He likes his guests to shave for dinner.” English’s hand goes automatically to his chin, and Ivan shakes his head. “Not your face,” he says and drops his eyes meaningfully lower.

For once English has no snappy reply. He looks wide-eyed and a little taken aback. If Ivan were a kinder man, he might even feel sorry for him.

“Thanks for the tip,” he says eventually and goes into his room, shutting the door firmly behind him. When he looks inside the bag he will find that in addition to hair removal cream and razors it contains a selection of lubricants, condoms and poppers. Ivan trusts he will need no explanation for those.

* * *

 

At nine o’clock, English leaves his room and makes his way towards Andreas’s suite. Ivan watches on the CCTV monitors, but even without them he would know what was happening from the opening door and the creak of the floorboards. The boy presses the call button and the door opens at once. Andreas stands silhouetted in the doorway. He has changed into polo shirt and khaki trousers. The camera shows only the back of the boy’s head, but whatever his expression reveals, it does not dampen Andreas’s good humour. He smiles broadly and gestures English inside. The door swings shut behind them. For the first time since entering the villa’s grounds, the boy is outside of Ivan’s sphere of influence. Whatever happens to him now, he is on his own.

As the minutes tick by, Ivan is aware of a growing sense of disquiet. He has not fully planned for this eventuality. Once the boy had looked inside the bag and seen, in the starkest of terms, what fate awaited him, Ivan had been sure that his nerve would fail. But English has surprised him once more, and now Ivan can only sit at his desk, watching impotently and waiting for him to reappear.

At nine thirty-two, George carries up a tray from the kitchen. Andreas, still dressed in his casual clothes, opens the door. There is no sign of English.

At nine forty, Constantine goes home for the night.

At nine forty-eight, George serves dinner on the terrace. Lukas and Yiannis join him. Unlike the previous evening there is little conversation and no laughter. Andreas’s reappearance has returned everyone to a work footing.

By ten fifteen, the staff meal is over and George is cleaning up in the kitchen. Lukas has returned to his quarters and Yiannis is in the lobby, talking on his mobile phone.

By ten thirty-five, George has locked up the kitchen for the night and is watching television in his bedroom. Yiannis has finished his phone call and is pacing back and forth on the terrace. Lukas is taking a shower.

At ten fifty-three, the door to Andreas’s rooms opens and English walks out, passes his own bedroom and continues down the corridor.

Ivan has the door open before he knows it. “Going somewhere?” 

“Oh, hi,” English says, awkwardly.

“Step inside for a moment.”

English looks like he wants to refuse but before he can answer, Ivan has drawn him into the office and shut the door. English looks around him with interest, taking in the wall of monitors, the desk and chair, the narrow cot and miniature fridge.

“Do you sleep in here too?” he asks when he spots the bed. “He certainly believes in getting his money’s worth, doesn’t he?”

Ivan sits on the corner of his desk and doesn’t answer at once. The boy is dressed in the creased navy chinos and blue open-collared shirt which Ivan had seen in his bag, and his hair is scraped back into a stumpy ponytail. The outfit hangs stiffly on him and to Ivan’s mind the colours do not suit him half as well as his usual reds and oranges. “What happened?” he asks.

English looks around from examining the wall of monitors. “Nothing.”

Ivan is not so sure. The boy’s face looks flushed and there is the same brightness to his eyes as Ivan had seen on the night of the storm. “Almost two hours and nothing happened?”

English rubs the back of his hand on his nose and gives an exaggerated sigh. “Well, obviously _something_ happened. We had drinks, dinner, said goodnight.”

“Andreas doesn’t normally just ‘say goodnight.’” He either keeps his guests with him or, if things don’t go according to plan, he calls Ivan and has them escorted from the premises.

“Well, he did today.”

“Really?” He looks at the boy again, his heightened colour, his crumpled clothes, and pushes off from the desk.

“What are you doing?” English protests. He edges away until the back of his knees hit the bunk and halt his retreat. “Stop being weird.”

Ignoring him, Ivan leans in and sniffs the angle of his jaw. The boy does not smell of Andreas. He does not even smell particularly of alcohol, or of the chemical-sweet scent of cocaine. He smells only of his own clean skin. Some of the tightness unlocks from his vertebrae. His shoulders lower a fraction.

“Okay,” English says, when he has drawn away. “You’re weird. Has anyone ever told you that? You are seriously cracked.”

“And you have a smart mouth,” Ivan says. “He didn’t fuck you.”

If anything, English goes redder yet. “Not that it’s any of your business. Can I go now?”

“Not yet.” Something still doesn’t add up. Even in his ugly clothes with his hair scraped back, the boy is eminently fuckable. Why would Andreas send him away? It makes no sense. “What happened?”

“As I keep saying, nothing happened!”

“All right,” Ivan says holding up his hands. “I believe you. Why not?”

The boy sighs again and the fight goes out of him. “Look. We had a glass of wine. We talked about sailing. He showed me some pictures of his yacht. We had dinner. It was nice.”

“Yes,” says Ivan. He's sure. Andreas can be charming when he chooses.

“After dinner, he gave me a tour of his apartment, then his studio. And he asked if he could take some pictures.”

“Yes.” This is what normally happens. This is the usual routine.

“So, I thought, why not? I’ve been here almost a week. It seemed like…” his voice trails off and he shrugs. “He took a couple of head shots and then asked if he could take some topless shots too.”

“Yes,” says Ivan for a third time. The tension has returned to his spine.

“And then he said I could go.”

And this is the point they keep returning to. “Why?”

English’s eyes meet his, then slide away. “He hadn’t realised about the scars. He said I wouldn’t photograph well with so many scars.”

Ivan shakes his head as though trying to clear fog from his brain. It takes a lot to surprise him, but this boy manages it repeatedly. “He said what?”

“It’s fine,” English says rubbing his torso absently. “I mean, it’s not like I can do anything about them anyway. But I thought it would be better to leave tonight, in case things are awkward tomorrow.”

“He didn’t want you?” It seems hard to credit. Has he let his own libidinous urges blind himself? He has imagined the boy as a gold-skinned Adonis, the type who would drive the very Gods mad with lust. He had never seriously considered that Andreas would think otherwise. But is it so strange? He has known from the outset that Andreas likes his boys languorous, doe-eyed and compliant. And this boy - young man really - is the opposite of that. His eyes return to English’s face, taking in his bright eyes and slightly parted lips. A lock of hair has escaped from its moorings and is dangling over his eyes, he brushes it absently to one side and his gaze comes to rest, almost by chance, on the necklace at the boy’s throat. Five smoothly burnished beads resting against his warm skin, half-hidden by his collar. “Andreas is a fool,” he says gently.

The boy gives a rueful smile. “I should go and pack.”

The necklace cord is made of a thickly woven synthetic, but Ivan keeps a little knife in his pocket for precisely occasions such as these. Its blade is barely as long as the last joint of his little finger, but it slices through the cord almost wthout friction.

“Is he alive?” he asks casually, weighing the beads in the palm of his hand. So that is how it has been done. Easy when you know how. A string of bright beads, and each colour has a different use. The bronze ones, perhaps, dissolve electrical insulation. And the yellow ones, maybe, can be slipped into a drink. But the boy has been wearing the necklace to swim in, so the beads cannot be water soluble. Perhaps instead there is a crushable pellet inside. But containing what? A sedative or a poison?

English’s hand goes to his empty neck. He stares at Ivan as if he’s gone mad. “What?”

“Andreas. Is he alive?”

English blinks incredulously. It is very nicely played. If Ivan were a less suspicious man, he might have been convinced. But when the boy had first arrived at the villa there had been seven beads around his neck, and on the night of the storm, six, and today, only five.

“Of course, he’s alive,” English says in a husky whisper.

Ivan gives a faint grimace. If it’s true it will make things more complicated. But before he can probe further, a movement on one of the monitors catches his eye.

“Ivan!” Yiannis’s thin, reedy voice comes from the landing. “Are you alone?”

English’s eyes seek his in silent question and Ivan presses a finger to his lips. “What do you want?” he calls.

“Andreas isn’t answering his phone.”

“Wait.” He gestures English out of sight behind the door. Then, moving swiftly, he pulls off his shirt and tosses it onto the bunk and presses a button on his laptop. The screen goes blank and soft music begins to play from the speakers.

Yiannis is standing on the landing, smartphone clasped in his hand. He is a thin young man with dark curly hair and wireless glasses, only twenty-eight years old but burning through his youth on a mixture of stress and caffeine. Behind the glasses, his eyes are red rimmed from tiredness and, not for the first time, Ivan thinks that working for Andreas will drive him to an early grave.

“I thought I heard voices,” Yiannis says. His gaze darts around the office. This is the first time he has seen into Ivan’s inner sanctum.

Ivan jerks his chin towards the computer. A woman’s voice is singing along to a guitar, soft and a little wistful.

Momentarily distracted, Yiannis cocks his head, trying to make out the unfamiliar words. “Nice. Is it Russian?”

“Georgian.”

“Oh.” Yiannis’s eyes return to Ivan and register his state of undress. “Were you sleeping?” he asks. A note of disapproval creeps into his voice and Ivan catches a glimpse of what he must have been like as a child. If Andreas is the school bully, then Yiannis is the class sneak - always hoping for the opportunity to get someone else into trouble.

“No.” He leans against the door jamb and crosses his arms, asserting the borders of his territory. “What’s the problem?”

“Milan messaged me. They can’t get hold of Andreas.”

Ivan gives a cynical laugh. “Andreas is busy with the English boy. They won’t hear from him tonight.”

“They were meant to be speaking at ten thirty.”

“Perhaps he forgot. The boy is very handsome.”

Yiannis’s thumb flicks convulsively across his phone screen. “I don’t think he’d forget this.”

Ivan glances down the hallway towards Andreas’s door. All the lights on the control panel are glowing a steady green. “What was the last thing he said to you?”

“’Do not disturb.’”

“Then don’t,” Ivan advises and makes to close the door.

“Wait!” Yiannis’s foot prevents him from completing the action. “Are his lights on?” He tries to step into the office only to find Ivan’s arm blocking his way. “Please,” he shoots him a reproachful look. “I just want to see out of your window. It will only take a moment.”

There’s a tiny pause, then Ivan lifts his arm. As he follows Yiannis across the office, he sees the necklace lying on top of his desk, and palms it as he passes. Yiannis has already thrown open the shutters and is craning his head out of the window. “The studio lights are on,” he announces.

“Like I said,” says Ivan, winding the ends of the cord around his fingers. From this position, if Yiannis turns to his right he will catch sight of English standing in the shadow of the open door and Ivan will have some fast decisions to make.

“And you’re sure the boy is still with him?”

“If he had come out, I would have seen,” Ivan points out.

Yiannis looks around and starts to find Ivan standing directly behind him. “Yes, but if you’ve been napping-”

“See for yourself, then.” Ivan takes him by the shoulders and steers him towards to the bank of monitors. “If he’s not with Andreas, where else can he be?”

They stand in silence in front of the flickering screens. It is as Ivan says, all of the villa is on display: the empty bedrooms; the reception rooms, the moonlit swimming pool; the main gate; the kitchen, the dark dining room; the hallway outside. In miniature they can see Lukas watching his laptop and George dozing in his armchair. The only rooms not on view are Andreas’s apartment and Ivan’s office, the room which they are standing in.

Yiannis gives an exclamation and leans closer. “Is that my-?”

“In the lamp on top of the television,” Ivan confirms.

An expression of distaste crosses Yiannis’s narrow features. “My God, you really do spy on us all.”

“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.”

Yiannis looks as if he is about to demur but thinks better of it. His eyes flick unwillingly across Ivan’s torso pausing at the the pale line which runs down his neck, the starburst of scars on his chest and the four parallel marks on his ribs. “What happened to you, anyway? Did you get into a fight with a bear?”

Ivan stares at him dead-eyed. “I had a bad youth.”

Uncertain how to respond, Yiannis tries to step around him, only to find Ivan has moved sideways and is once again blocking his path. “Do you think we should go knock on his door?”

He gives a one shouldered shrug. “You can if you like.”

Yiannis nods unhappily, caught between a rock and a hard place. Andreas’s anger if he is disturbed from his tryst will be immediate and terrible. On the other hand, if Milan thinks he is avoiding their calls the repercussions could be even worse. Jobs in Greece are not easy to come by. If he screws this one up then there are a dozen eager candidates ready to take his place.

“Get Dimitris to tell Milan we’re having network issues,” Ivan suggests. “Put them off for a while.”

“But they know we’re not,” Yiannis all but wails. “They’ve called me three times already.”

Without speaking, Ivan takes the phone from his slack hand, opens the back and ejects the battery. “Now you are,” he says, returning it in three parts.

Yiannis looks at the dismantled components resting in his palm. “I guess.”

“You worry too much,” Ivan says gently. “You should learn to relax. Before you give yourself an ulcer.”

Yiannis gives him a startled look and backs towards the door. Ivan’s bare skin is unnerving him. It has never occurred to Yiannis to wonder about his colleagues’ personal lives. But this evening, he is gaining an inkling. There is the ghost of a smile on the Russian’s pale lips, a slight angle to the tilt of his hips and Yiannis is starting to wonder if it was a good idea to barge his way into his room after hours. Intentions, after all, can be misconstrued. “I should go contact Dimitris.”

“Come back later if you like,” Ivan offers. “I come off duty at midnight. There is vodka in the fridge. We could listen to music.”

“Thank you, no,” says Yiannis backing further away. “I should. No.”

“As you like,” Ivan says and herds him out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

English comes out of the shadows and watches with him as Yiannis scuttles down the hallway. When he enters his bedroom, he goes straight to the bathroom and emerges carrying a towel. A second later, the feed goes blank.

“So,” Ivan says into the silence which follows. “I can call the manufacturer in Hamburg to activate the door override and find out what’s really happened to Andreas. Or we can work something out between ourselves. Your choice.”


	8. The search

“I have a hundred Euros in my room,” English says, but Ivan is already shaking his head.

“Not what I had in mind.”

English considers, his dark eyes thoughtful. Once again, Ivan is struck by his air of quiet confidence. Caught out in a lie, on hostile territory and facing a far better resourced and more experienced opponent, and the boy remains as cool as a cucumber. Really he is an enigma. “I don’t have anything else,” he says at last.

“Are you sure?” Ivan inquires. “I think you have something I want.”

English’s eyes return to his face, trying to decipher his meaning. But he is not the only one who has learned to control his expression. “My passport? My phone?”

“Neither of those.”

The boy shrugs. “Then I don’t have anything else for you.”

“Are you sure?” Ivan repeats.

There’s a long pause which he makes no effort to fill. It’s the oldest technique in the book, but still it can be effective. There are other techniques, of course, more forceful ones, but Ivan trusts there will be no need for those tonight. Resorting to brute force is the mark of an amateur, and Ivan may be many things, but he is not an amateur. However, he is starting to suspect, the English boy is not an amateur either, despite his tender years. He doesn’t fill the silence with babble. He doesn’t try to run away. He simply looks at Ivan steadily and makes no attempt to reply.

Stalemate.

“Why don’t you take off your shirt?” Ivan suggests. “Let me check your pockets. Perhaps there’s something hidden in there. Something that you’ve forgotten?”

Now, a hint of hesitation crosses the boy’s face. “I’m not sure I want to do that.”

Ivan shrugs. “Fine. I’ll call Hamburg.”

“You can if you like,” English says carelessly. “But Andreas won’t be happy if you wake him.”

Oh, a counteroffensive? It has been a while since Ivan has played this game, this back and forth, cat and mouse pursuit. It feels good to stretch his muscles after their long Greek siesta. “You think he’s asleep already?” he asks, letting a polite scepticism colour his voice. Andreas is Greek and he keeps Greek hours. He never sleeps before midnight. Often he has not finished eating by then.

“I don’t know. He was drinking quite a lot.”

“I see.” Truly, it would take a lot for Andreas to be rendered unconscious from drink. More than a few glasses of wine with his dinner, for sure. More than a few glasses of ouzo after it. Something slipped into his glass, when his back was turned? Yes, that Ivan would believe.

Another pause. Stalemate again. The music plays on, a hushed voice singing to a guitar of love, yearning and loss. Ivan listens, letting his mind follow the melody out into the world, then back into his body. His awareness of the space around him is absolute. The bank of monitors to his left, the desk to his right, the door behind him, the window in front. English’s options at this stage are quite limited. He can try leave by the door, but he will need to get past Ivan first. He can try leaping out of the window, tacitly admitting his guilt, and hope he doesn’t break both legs in the process. He can call Ivan’s bluff and let him call Hamburg. Or he can play nice, comply with Ivan’s request, and hope that some other solution presents itself in due course.

He can tell when the boy has come to a decision by the way he straightens his shoulders. Without speaking, he unbuttons his shirt and passes it over. Ivan examines it quickly. The material is a cheap polycotton, the make a well-known British hiking brand. Other than the fabric still has the starchy feel of an item which has never been washed, there is nothing remarkable about it. The chest pocket is empty, and nothing is hidden beneath the collar. The material is too thin for anything to be concealed in the hems. Satisfied, Ivan shakes out the creases and hangs it over the chair back.

“Shoes,” he says.

The shoes are the Converse trainers which the boy had worn on the first day. He doesn’t bother with socks so, like the shirt, they only take a few seconds to check. When he is finished Ivan ties the laces together and places them neatly on the chair seat.

“Trousers.”

The look of concern returns to English’s face. He had thought, perhaps, that his task was all but complete when he had walked out of Andreas’s door. Now he is starting to realise that he had walked out of the dragon’s den and into the dragon. His hands come to rest on his waistband, hovering protectively over the fly button. “What exactly are you looking for?” he asks.

“I will know that when I find it,” Ivan says reasonably. “Your trousers, please.”

Another long hesitation, then English removes the chinos and passes them over. These prove more interesting. There is a handful of wrappers in the left pocket, and the iPhone in the right. Ivan places the phone carefully into his drawer for safe keeping and tips the wrappers on to his desk. Some are condoms, some lube. Two of the condom wrappers are empty. He pokes at them thoughtfully. Strawberry flavour, no less. Whatever will they come up with next? “I thought Andreas said ‘no’?”

“He did.”

“So, what are these?”

English rubs his nose sheepishly. Uncharacteristically, he seems at a loss for words. Ivan understands. He is standing in his underwear in front of a sceptical audience while being quizzed about a very personal matter. It is not a comfortable place to be. But just because Ivan understands does not mean the boy is off the hook.

“I opened them earlier,” he says at last.

“Earlier?”

“This afternoon,” English clarifies.

Ivan frowns. “Why?”

Another, even longer silence. A slow flush is making its way down English’s neck and across his chest. “I was practising,” he mumbles.

“Practising?” Ivan repeats and laughs quietly. He believes in being prepared, but this is a new one on him. He sweeps the empty wrappers into his drawer and pockets the lube. “Puppy, you were never going to be the one _wearing_ the condoms.”

The sobriquet earns him a blistering, resentful glance and Ivan smiles inwardly. The boy _is_ a very pretty puppy with his stormy eyes and his sulky mouth. He continues his search methodically, checking first along the seams of the trousers and then their waistband. The wrap of blue pills in the left ankle has vanished. That explains the boy’s red face and stuffy nose, but not why an eighteen-year-old would feel moved to take Viagra in the first place. Although, if one were expecting to be photographed by a notorious Lothario, and a great believer in being prepared, then perhaps it would be sensible to ensure he had something to photograph.

“You see,” English says with a trace of defiance. “Nothing there.”

“Not yet,” Ivan agrees. He folds the trousers and hangs them on top of the shirt then considers his next move.

The boy’s underwear is conservative, just a pair of plain blue boxer shorts, but a body like his doesn’t really need fancy packaging. With the lamplight gleaming on his golden skin he looks as though he has been cast from bronze, and his youth and strength and vigour make everything else in the room look worn and shoddy. His chest is smooth now, the line of hair which bisected it all shorn away. It is a shame, but not a tragedy. It will grow back. In its absence, the scars across his ribs appear more prominent, describing an abstract pattern of lines and whorls as they descent down his torso. Prominent, yes, but not ugly. Not ugly at all.

“Do you want a drink?” he asks.

The invitation takes the boy by surprise. “No. But don’t let me stop you.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs ironically. He opens the fridge and removes a bottle of vodka from the door. “I have ouzo also,” he adds, and gives a faint smile at the boy’s involuntary shudder. “No more ouzo?”

“No more ouzo,” English agrees. He has learned that lesson at least.

Glasses are kept in a basket on top of the fridge. He pours out a shot and takes a slow mouthful. It is a good vodka, made by a small distillery in St. Petersburg. One to be sipped rather than gulped. This single bottle has lasted him the whole summer, but tonight he thinks he has earned himself a drink. “And what about those?” he says nodding towards the boy’s boxer shorts. “Are you hiding anything in those?”

_“Oh, super smooth,” Alex says sardonically from the other end of the line._

_Yassen’s eyes have been closed to better visualise the imagined scene, but now they spring open. “Oh hello, you’re talking again?”_

_“Yeah,” Alex says a trifle defensively._

_He had not spoken at all the previous week, bar a brief greeting and farewell. And Yassen, having at the start of the story been annoyed by the constant interruptions, had found, somewhat to his surprise, that he missed them. Now Alex has decided to break his self-imposed silence it is tempting to josh him a little about last week’s reticence. Ask him to explain why he had suddenly become shy. But it is probably not the right time. “How are you finding the story?” he asks instead._

_“Yeah, not bad.”_

_The British idiom, ‘not bad’ is a confusing one since in the minds of native speakers it means, in effect, ‘good.’ This can be contrasted with the British idiom, ‘quite good,’ which means in effect, ‘awful.’ Yassen had been more or less fluent in English by the age of eighteen, but it has taken him another twenty years to master the intricacies of the different dialects._

_“Did you like the necklace?” He had been pleased with the necklace._

_“The necklace was clever,” Alex admits._

_“And the part with Yiannis?”_

_A trace of impatience enters Alex’s voice. “Stop fishing for compliments and get on with the story.”_

_“You’re eager tonight,” Yassen observes, but he closes his eyes and resumes without further prompting._

The flush across the boy’s chest grows more pronounced and he shakes his head.

“No?” Ivan takes a second mouthful of vodka, enjoying the tension of the moment, the slow burn on his tongue. “Are you sure?”

When English still doesn’t answer he sets down his glass and silently moves across the intervening space. Unlike Yiannis, the boy doesn’t retreat. Instead he holds his ground and looks Ivan straight in the eye. And that is another unusual thing about him. Most people do not look straight at Ivan. Their eyes glide over him, registering an impression of dark clothing and blond neatness before moving on to something more interesting. To most observers, Ivan is little more than a piece of furniture. No more sex appeal than a parking bollard. But from day one, English has noticed him. He may not like Ivan, but he has always noticed him. As though he recognises him as a fellow traveller on some basic level.

At this distance, he is close enough to see there are yellow flecks in the boy’s irises, smell the olive soap he has used to wash with and beneath it the warm hay scent of his skin. He brushes his hand against the placket of the boy’s shorts and feels a rising heat against his palm. Viagra, of course, is not an aphrodisiac. But it can magnify certain reactions, particularly if one is young, and virile and being approached in an agreeable way.

“Do you have something in here for me?” Ivan murmurs. “Something nice?”

English doesn’t reply. His neck and chest are flushed red, and what’s pressing against Ivan’s hand isn’t entirely unresponsive.

“Why don’t you take them off?” Ivan suggests.

Tellingly, English doesn’t voice any further protest. Things have gone a little far now for him to pretend to be coy. He skims the shorts down his legs and kicks them to one side. Ivan examines them swiftly, before placing them on the chair. There is nothing inside them, of course. He had not expected there would be. What is interesting to him is not what they contain, but what they have concealed.

English stands before him, hands curled loosely by his sides. His stance reminds Ivan of the kouros figures, so beloved by the ancient Greeks. The young man in the prime of life, standing proudly naked, the ideal human form. But unlike the cold marble and bronze of classical Greece, this youth is warm and full of life. His chest rises and falls with each breath, his lips are parted, and there is a slight sheen to his skin. Ivan’s gaze passes once more over his chest and stomach then slides lower, his eyelashes dipping thoughtfully. The curling hair at the boy’s groin is a few shades darker than his head and has been trimmed into a neat triangle. And his cock, well-

_Yassen takes a sip of water, although his throat is not dry._

_“What about it?” Alex asks casually, right on cue._

_He smiles. It is a rare man who does not like to hear his favourite appendage praised, and while Alex Rider is unusual in many respects, in others he is quite predictable. “His cock is very nice,” he allows._

 

Not hard, but not quite soft either. Smooth-skinned, straight and nicely thick. It fits very well with the rest of his body. Ivan looks and keeps on looking, making no secret of his interest. Is it his imagination, or does his scrutiny cause a further stirring? He thinks it does. And when his eyes return to English’s face he sees the boy’s expression holds a complicated mixture of embarrassment, trepidation and a trace of natural pride. He knows he is an attractive young man. And while he would much rather not be standing naked and exposed in the middle of Ivan’s office, one part of him, at least, is gratified to find itself so obviously admired.

“You see,” he says with a defiant lift of his chin. “Nothing to hide.”

“Turn,” Ivan says circling his finger in the air. He will be the judge of that.

English rolls his eyes but obeys without comment. The back view is equally nice. Long legs, strong shoulders with a scattering of freckles across them, and a smooth round backside, dusted with a little golden fuzz. Ivan looks and feels once again the tug of desire. Not the previous days’ ravenous howl but a slow, warm curl of interest, the not unpleasant itch which reminds him he is alive.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asks more to himself than to English.

The boy glances warily over his shoulder. “Let me go?”

Well, it’s one possibility, Ivan admits, but it’s far from the only one. “And what will you give me in return?” he inquires.

The boy’s hair is still tied up in its loose ponytail. As he speaks, he catches hold of the band which constrains it and tugs it free. The released tresses fall about the boy’s shoulders, kinked from where they have been tied back and a little damp still from their recent washing. Ivan winds a stray curl around his finger and examines it. Whatever other lies English is telling: whether his tan is real or fake, his accent from London or the Solent, Andreas alive or dead, this hair is the genuine article. The strands lie cool and silky against his skin, each one a different colour ranging in tone from pale blond to amber to dark caramel. He likes long hair. He likes to comb his fingers through it and rub its softness against his cheek.

A resigned expression has appeared on English’s face. “This is a sex thing, right?”

Ivan laughs and releases his grasp. He is naked, Ivan is shirtless and only now this insight occurs? “Do you think so?” he asks.

He is still holding the hairband. He slides it onto his wrist for safe-keeping and draws the blunt edge of his thumb nail across the boy’s spine, marking out the division of each vertebrae one by one.

“I thought you weren’t interested in that,” English says, aiming for nonchalance but his voice faltering slightly as Ivan’s hand descends lower down his silky back.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Last night-”

Ivan shrugs. Things have moved on since last night. Last night, Andreas’s apartments had been secure, Ivan's job had been to ensure they remained so and that is what he had done. Compromising the villa’s security through a dalliance with a potential moonlighter was never on the cards, no matter how appealing that moonlighter might be. But it is a little late to worry about that now. The villa’s security has been breached through no fault of Ivan’s. If Andreas chooses to ignore his head of security’s repeated advice and continue to invite these young men into his rooms, then that is his prerogative. But that doesn’t mean Ivan will necessarily feel any personal responsibility for helping to clear up the ensuing mess.

“I don’t touch Andreas’s things,” he says. His thumb reaches the boy’s sacrum and he lets it rest there while he waits for him to draw his own conclusions.

“But if they’re not actually Andreas’s…?” Ivan doesn’t reply. The boy is not stupid. He can work this one out by himself. Sure enough, after a moment English continues, “What do you want- exactly?”

“Exactly?” Ivan walks his fingers back up the long groove of his spine.

“In return for letting me leave?”

Ivan considers. There are many things he wants exactly. But perhaps one or two of them can be combined. There is no reason, after all, that he cannot mix business with pleasure.

“Well, for a start…” He tucks a loose strand of hair behind the boy’s ear, then looks at his mouth and leans closer. The signals are clear, more or less universal, and English recognising them draws back in surprise. Before he can protest, Ivan has placed two fingers against his lips then smooths his thumb along his drawn eyebrows. “Just a little,” he says sliding an arm around his shoulders and drawing him close.

The mouth pressed against his is firm but not unyielding. Gradually, gradually, Ivan coaxes his lips open until he can reach the silky smoothness of his mouth. He tastes sweet, like honey. Ivan had not expected his mouth to taste so sweet. And he had not expected the boy’s tongue to brush against his in a tentative caress. Ivan kisses him, then winds his hands in his hair, pulls him closer and kisses him again. Mouth to mouth. Lip to lip. Chest to chest. Their bodies meeting in a long embrace. Kissing like a pair of oversexed teenagers. Ivan has not kissed like this for years.

 

_“Years?” Alex interjects sharply. But Yassen ignores him. This is his story, and they are just getting to the good part._


	9. The necklace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexual content, consent issues, and various unexpected events due to Yassen's somewhat offbeat approach to life.

When they finally draw apart, they are both breathing faster and English’s expression has shifted from alarmed to confused. His plans for the evening had not involved kissing and particularly not kissing Ivan, and certainly not a kiss as long and passionate as that.

“Let’s lie down,” Ivan suggests, before he can recover his wits.

English is a little taller than he is-

 

_An indignant scoff at this pronouncement. “A little?”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Two inches taller, at least.”_

_Yassen shrugs. Three centimetres, five , does it really matter? People, men in particular, get hung up about their height, but unless they plan to be a professional basketball player it is a matter of very little consequence. Pilot-Cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin had been a hundred and fifty-seven centimetres and no less of a man because of it._

_“If you say so.”_

 

English is taller than he is, but most of the difference is in his legs. On the bunk, they align neatly: eye to eye, mouth to mouth, hip to hip. Ivan settles along the boy’s flank and sees his eyes widen as Ivan’s erection comes to press against his thigh. His dark trousers have disguised the extent of his interest, but in close proximity there can be no mistaking it.

“What are you offering me?” he asks, and the tight heat of his body leaves his meaning in no doubt.

English lowers his lashes in indecision. With his rosy cheeks and tussled hair, he resembles a Baroque painting. If he is playing the _ingénu_ then it is very nicely done. “I’ll suck you off,” he says at last.

“I’d like that,” Ivan admits, a little regretfully because it’s true. It’s not going to be what happens, but it’s true. The boy has a very nice mouth, especially now it is swollen from kissing. “Shall I go first and show you what I like?”

English hesitates. This was not quite what he had in mind. He was hoping to give a quick blow job and slip away while Ivan was sated and relaxed. But how can he refuse such a generous offer without arousing suspicion? “If you want.”

“Yes,” says Ivan. Yes, he does.

They kiss again briefly, then he mouths down the hot skin of the boy’s neck, following the trace of a vein to his collar bone then onward to his chest. Here there are any number of interesting diversions: the soft skin of his inner arm, the warmth of his armpits, the freckles on his shoulders, all call out to be mapped by Ivan’s questing hands and lips. But although the potential is limitless, his time is not. At any moment Andreas could reappear, and he will not be as easy to put off as Yiannis. With a farewell nuzzle to a collar bone he slides lower down the bed. On his way he laps his tongue over one flat brown nipple and feels the boy twitch.

“Oh?” He lifts his head. “Sensitive there?”

Tellingly, English won’t meet his eyes. Ivan lingers, intrigued, alternating between brushing his teeth lightly over each nipple as their tips darken and harden, then soothing the sting with his tongue. But although the boy’s breath quickens, he remains resolutely mute. After a minute, Ivan shrugs and moves on. He is a reasonable person and within reason happy to accede to his partners’ requests. But he is not a mind reader. If English wants nice things to happen to him, then he is going to have to learn to say what feels good.

 

_Yassen pauses. Does the point need labouring further? No, he decides. Alex is not stupid. He can draw his own inferences from this._

 

He kisses open-mouthed down the boy’s flat stomach, dipping briefly into his navel, then on to the mat of short curls which cluster around the base of his cock. Here he pauses to inhale deeply. English smells good, the same warm yellow hay scent he always has, but thicker here and hotter, like the savannah at noon. Ivan hadn’t realised it was possible for someone to smell so good. It is intoxicating. Over the years, he has trained himself not to react to stimuli which many would find overwhelming. But scent is different. It is primal and compelling. It bypasses the cortex and goes straight to the most ancient and primitive part of the brain. By the time the conscious mind realises what is happening, it is too late, the body is already beginning to respond.

His enthusiasm appears contagious. When he takes English’s cock in his hand he finds he is already hot, responsive, and alive, the pink crown just peeking out, as though a little shy. He squeezes, feeling an answering swell and flex, then closes his hand about him and draws along his length, firm and slow. A second pass, and a third, and English is no longer shy but bold and upright.

“Is this for me?” Ivan murmurs. Without waiting for an answer, he dips his head and nuzzles at English’s balls. They are high and tight in their velvety sack, and when Ivan mouths at them, his cock jerks off his stomach as though attached to a spring. For all his bashful manner, he is certainly a responsive young man. So responsive, in fact, that if they are not careful this will be over before it has truly begun. The hairband is still on Ivan’s wrist. It is made of some stretchy elastic material. He considers it thoughtfully, then, quick as thinking, slips it over the boy’s cock and behind his balls so it sits tight and snug against his pelvis.

 

_“That won’t stop him from coming, though,” Alex observes in world-weary tones._

_“I know that.” Yassen frowns. Does Alex think he is twelve? Not possessed of a penis himself? Though it may slow things down, no band of stretchy fabric will stop a man coming if he has hit the point when he must. “That’s not what it’s for.”_

_“Oh.” Alex’s thin veneer of sophistication collapses at once into a state of confusion. He doesn’t know what it’s for, Yassen realises with a flash of amusement. Only what it will not do. His knowledge of such matters is entirely theoretical._

_“I like how it looks,” he says softly. “I like how it keeps him hard and tight. I like that it reminds him who it is who is calling the shots.”_

_“Oh,” says Alex again and, tellingly, doesn’t attempt to argue about who that might be._

His action triggers an immediate response. English gives a yelp and tries to sit up, only to find Ivan is lying across his legs, and surprisingly heavy for his size. He makes it onto his elbows and stares down his torso accusingly through his dangling fringe. “What are you doing?”

He sounds agitated, and Ivan cannot blame him. What with Andreas, and dinner and now Ivan, the boy is having a very busy day, and every time he thinks he’s getting a handle on events, something new happens to wrongfoot him.

“Does it feel nice?” he asks, one fingertip tracing casually along the dark band.

English’s face reflects mixed feelings. It does feel nice, but he’s not sure if it should. The constriction means his cock swells thick and fat and his balls are lifted and pushed forward as though presented for Ivan’s attention. Everything feels tight and sensitive, but also troublingly vulnerable and exposed.

“You said this was going to be a blow job,” he complains.

Ivan almost laughs at the petulant note in his voice. If the boy is this alarmed by a hairband then it is as well he has not spent more time with Andreas. Now there is a man who has a very wide selection of toys, and little compunction about using them.

“Oh, well.” He conceals a smile and pets English’s knee consolingly. He is not sure that is exactly what he had said, but he is not averse to the idea in principle. “What about this, then? Is this better?”

He runs his hands along the backs of the boy’s thighs and pulls him closer, lifting one leg to rest on his shoulder. A kiss to the inner knee, feeling the downy hairs tickle his lips, a second to his thigh, a third to the warm and tender crease where his leg joins his body. Everything very relaxed and easy. Not alarming at all. Then, moving slowly, he takes the boy’s cock in one hand and breathes hot air onto the smooth pink head. English gives a sigh and subsides onto the bed without speaking. Yes, Ivan deduces, that’s _much_ better. He strokes him once or twice to keep his interest, but the focus of his attention is elsewhere. When people think of blow jobs they think mostly of the penis but really there is so much more to it than that.

 

_Yassen pauses briefly. But again, Alex is capable of drawing his own conclusions._

 

Without speaking, he nibbles his way over the tight pouch of English scrotum then, narrowing the tip of his tongue to a point, traces the line that runs down its centre like a raised seam, gently flicking it with his tongue, following it down between the boy’s thighs to where the base of his cock really begins. The hair here is denser, the razor has not reached so far, and it tickles Ivan’s nose. The skin smells clean, steamy and soapy. And then incongruously, like strawberries. As out of place here as a priest in a brothel. Intrigued, he slides his free hand beneath the boy’s hip, only to feel the muscles clench as he approaches the tight cleft of his backside.

“I don’t want to do that,” English says urgently, flinching away as if burnt.

“Just a little,” Ivan says. But English only clamps his thighs more firmly together and shakes his head.

“No.”

Interestingly though, his erection does not flag. If anything, Ivan thinks, it swells even larger. His objections are mental rather than physical, it seems.

“Alright.” Conceding temporary defeat, he retreats, kissing and caressing the top of the boy’s legs while he coaxes him into a better frame of mind. In fairness, it does not take a great deal of effort, simply one languorous hand sliding up and down his length, stroking him slow and firm until the crown of his cock grows slick and glossy, then using that slickness to smooth his way. When everything is wet and hot and slippery, he applies his mouth, gently licking the round swollen head just as the fingers of his free hand slip between the boy’s thighs and return once more to that welcoming furrow.

English mutters unhappily, but it is hard to voice a coherent objection when a pair of warm lips is brushing against your cock and a willing agile tongue is licking you like an ice-cream cone. And really, what Ivan’s fingers are doing is not so terribly horrible. They are not rough. They are not intrusive or forceful. They are only stroking and circling. Perhaps it is all right, after all. Perhaps, even, it is a little bit exciting once one has recovered from the shock of being touched in such an intimate place. The skin there is very sensitive; the nerves run deep into the pelvis. Sensations are starting to build and gather which certainly don’t feel bad. Perhaps there is nothing to be worried about. Perhaps it is alright to relax and enjoy them. Perhaps, everything is fine, and life is wonderful and Ivan is as good as his word.

 

_“Yeah, right.”_

_“Oh, you don’t think his intentions are pure?”_

_“I don’t think his intentions are pure,_ at all _,” says Alex. But he sounds amused rather than accusing. As if he knows what is coming next. As if he has been looking forward to it._

_“So suspicious,” Yassen chides._

 

Of course, he is probably wrong. But it is hard to think straight when you’re young and eager, and when your cock is being so expertly teased. English will not be the first person to let his libido overrule his good sense. And he will not be the first person who has misjudged Ivan Anatolyevich, or who has mislaid his principles for the sake of a silky wet tongue.

Ivan slows his pace, choosing his moment. Judging by the boy’s uncoordinated jerks and rapid breathing he is very close now. If Ivan were a merciful man he would pump his hand once, twice, and let him unload all over his golden stomach. There will be a lot of it, he can already tell. The villa’s cameras and the boy’s busy schedule have left him little opportunity for self-exploration. But Ivan has never been a merciful man. So, he strokes and he circles and he licks. And he watches as the boy’s balls swell and lift, the band at their base constricting them ever more firmly. And he waits until his back arches and his muscles clench. And then, just as his hips start to buck and spasm he lifts his mouth and loosens his grasp.

The effect is immediate and dramatic. The boy gives a choked cry and thrusts fruitlessly into the air. Against his probing fingers Ivan feels his muscles spasm and flutter, but though his hips heave, his muscles clench and his heels dig into the mattress, he cannot get the friction he needs to tip him over the edge. His hips thrust futilely a few more times, then he subsides onto the bunk with a groan so heartfelt that Ivan almost feels bad for him. Poor English. He had wanted very much to come. It must be frustrating. Life is unfair at times, but he should take comfort in knowing that things could be much worse. After all, no one has ever died from wanting to come; Ivan would know if they had.

“Why did you stop?” the boy says when he’s recovered his wits sufficiently to speak.

“First you have to give me what I want,” says Ivan.

“What?” English wrenches his head off the pillow to stare at him.

“You heard me,” Ivan says and he tickles his fingers meaningfully.

He doesn’t know if it’s his expression or his touch, but something galvanises English into action. He tries to scrabble his way off the bed, only to find he can’t move. His left leg is hooked over Ivan’s shoulder. The right lies against the sheets and the point of Ivan’s elbow has come to rest against the pressure point at his inner knee. Quietly and efficiently, without him even realising it, he has been pinned to the sheets.

“Let go!” he protests, trying to disentangle himself.

“I don’t think so,” says Ivan apologetically. “Not this time.”

English stills and all at once his face grows older than his years. Ivan has seen it happen before, many times, although rarely in such an intimate setting. Pieces of a puzzle sliding into place. The moment of recognition. “Who are you?” English asks in a hushed voice. “ _Bratva_?”

 _Bratva_ is the Russian mafia. Not an unreasonable guess in the circumstances but Ivan is disappointed all the same. Everyone always assumes Russians are mafia. “Give it to me,” he says again.

English brushes his sweaty curls away from his forehead and ignores him. “Who are you working for?”

Now this is a better question. One the boy should, perhaps, have thought of asking five days ago, but a better question all the same. There are many groups who are interested in the villa’s contents. English’s employers are far from the only ones. “No one you’ve heard of.”

“But not Andreas,” the boy says with certainty. There is a red flush running from his sternum to his throat and his cock is twitching on his belly with every beat of his heart. He is very hard, and very out of his depth, but still thinking, still trying to find an angle. Really, it is impressive. He is a young man with a bright future ahead of him. Assuming he can make it out of this room.

“No,” he agrees. “Not Andreas.” Andreas is a fool, and for all his posturing he has no real need for someone of Ivan skillset. A fact, perhaps, which should have caused him to question why Ivan’s rates were so very reasonable before he invited him into his house. But Andreas is not a man who spends much time on reflection. For the most part, this assignment has been a very boring one. But Ivan doesn’t regret taking it on. On the contrary, it has been good for him to relax and recharge his batteries. He feels ten years younger at least. And really, quite virile.

“And your name’s not Ivan,” English says. “Is it?”

He smiles faintly. “No.” A Russian called Ivan? It’s such a _cliché._ It amuses him sometimes to play into these stereotypes. Give people what they expect and most of the time they won’t ever bother looking any deeper.

Perhaps the smile causes English to think his attention has wondered. He makes a sudden twist and bolt for freedom but his fraught and tumid condition means he is lacking his usual agility and it does not take much effort to pin him back onto the bed.

“Puppy,” he chides. “I warned you three or four times and you didn’t listen.”

The boy shakes his head stubbornly. “No.”

“Yes,” he corrects. “When I found you on the terrace on your first night. When I caught you on the landing trying to pick the lock-”

“I wasn’t,” English interjects but a warning pinch to the inside of his thigh halts his denials.

“On the night of the storm when you damaged the fuse box,” he continues. “Even this afternoon when I gave you the bag. All those times you could have walked away and I would have let you go.” He pulls down the corners of his mouth and shakes his head, miming sadness. “But you wanted to play with the big boys and so here we are. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. But either way, we’re doing this.”

 

_“This guy’s a bit of a bastard,” Alex observes._

_“Don’t swear.”_

_“You swear.”_

_“I don’t.”_

_“You do, “ Alex says hotly. “You’ve said, ‘fuck’ loads of times.”_

_“I say, ‘fuck’ when I mean fuck. Not as a swear word.”_

_“Oh, piss off,” Alex mutters. Yassen’s eyes narrow. They will talk about this again. In person._

English stares at him stormy eyed and doesn’t answer. With his tussled hair and the light sheen of sweat glistening on his golden skin he is a very appealing prospect. And still hard despite this latest series of unpleasant surprises. Quite an unusual young man. He has been a worthy adversary despite his youth. Perhaps there is, after all, a third way of doing this, one which will work to both their advantages

“Alright,” he says at last, “what about if we do it this way?”

Without expanding further, he ducks his head, placing his tongue where his fingers have recently rested, at the place where the skin is most delicate. The furled muscle twitches beneath his lips and English makes a strangled noise of shock, simultaneously trying to bolt and push back into his mouth. His reaction reveals two things. First, that he has never been thoroughly, skilfully tongued before. And second, that it feels so good he barely knows what to do with himself.

“Shh,” he says, half soothing, half threat and English subsides onto the bed, the tension melting from his muscles, like a flower opening underneath the heat of the sun. How can he do anything else, under such a silken, persuasive, assault?

He persists. Gently. Inexorably. Caressing with his lips and tongue while keeping up a patient, steady pressure with his fingers. Listening to the muscle, allowing it time to relax. He enjoys doing this. When the time is right. When the person is right. It is a very intimate act. The skin is as soft as a peach, it tastes of strawberry lube and English’s own warm scent. And the boy is starting to make some fascinating noises. Desperate breathy gasps. It is just a matter of time now. Most people can only clench twenty-five, thirty seconds at the outside. English manages thirty-three. Really, the boy is quite something. But not superhuman, after all, and the moment the muscles soften, his fingers slip inside, sweetly and easily, and find at once exactly what they seek. The consequences are even more dramatic than he expected. English gives a strangled cry, his legs spasm, his toes curl and he clamps down upon the invading digits, but it is a little late for that now. He has been teased and tormented for a long time, something has to give, and the slick friction is enough to tip him over the edge, even as the contraband slips free.

 

_“What?”_

He comes for quite some time, all over this stomach and chest, and as far up as his collar bones. It is a compliment, the man who was called Ivan supposes. He waits until the boy’s spasms have subsided into tremors then slides off the hair band and turns his attention to the main prize. The condoms themselves are a shocking pink, two of them, layered one inside the other and knotted at the end. But even a double layer of lurid pink latex can do little to conceal the soft milky glow of the Delaney pearls.

_“O-kay,” Alex says. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait.”_

_Yassen waits._

_“What just happened?” Alex says._

_“Where did you think he would hide them?” he asks. It seems the obvious solution, given the parameters of the problem and the materials at hand._

_There’s a sudden commotion followed by a bang and a distant expletive. Alex has dropped his phone. “Hide what?” he says, when he returns to the line._

_“The pearls?”_

_A long pause._

_“What pearls?” Alex asks._

_“The Delaney pearls.”_

_“The Delaney pearls,” Alex repeats. “Of course.” And without warning he_ _begins laughing._

_Inwardly, Yassen sighs. This is the crux of the story, the climax of the plot in more ways than one, and instead of hanging on to his every word with rapt attention, his audience is having the giggles._

_“A problem, Alex?” he asks crisply once the mirth has died away into an occasional gurgle._

_“Yeah. Run this by me again. I think I’m missing some key information.”_

_“Yes,” says Yassen. He is beginning to think so too. This is not going as he had planned. He had thought Alex and he were on the same page about where this story was headed. Apparently, they are not._

_“There are some pearls. The Delaney pearls. Are they real?”_

_Yassen removes the handset from his ear so he can look at it in bafflement. “No. None of it is real. It’s all a story.”_

_“Okay. So, they’re fictional pearls. A necklace?”_

_“A necklace,” Yassen confirms. In stories like these, the item is always a necklace. It is the convention._

_“A pearl necklace,” says Alex dryly. “Nice touch. And they’re very precious, everyone wants them, that kind of thing. And they’ve been stolen, at a guess?”_

_“From an exhibition in Milan.” As he has said previously._

_“So, these fictional stolen pearls are being kept in Andreas’s apartment, presumably because he acts as a middleman between different criminal groups.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“And this English operative, Barry-”_

_“Tommy.”_

_“Tommy, sorry, has been sent to steal them while Andreas is away. Only when he arrives at the villa he finds his intel is out of date and there’s been a major security upgrade. Not to mention there’s this intense Russian security guy watching his every move. ”_

_“Very good.” So, he has been listening to some parts at least._

_“Okay,” says Alex, warming to his theme. “Unable to break in, Tommy has no option but to wait for Andreas to return and pull an old-fashioned infiltrate and incapacitate, knowing he’s got a thing for teenage boys which he can use to his advantage.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“And having managed all that, finally got into the apartment, incapacitated the target, found the pearls etc, he’s decided the best thing he can do with them is stick them up his arse.”_

_It is a cruder way of putting it than Yassen would have chosen but it is correct in its essentials. “Yes.”_

_“And this is where you lost me,” says Alex with a mixture of humour and exasperation. “Why?”_

_“Where else would he hide them?” Yassen wants to know._

_“Why does he need to hide them at all?”_

_“You think he can walk out of the villa? Just like that?”_

_“Okay.” A pause as Alex applies his wits. “As soon as he leaves the apartment he knows Ivan will be on him like a flash. He can’t hide the necklace in the apartment because he can’t get back in. So why not throw it out the window and collect it on the way past?”_

_“CCTV,” Yassen points out. “Dogs.”_

_“Or, I don’t know, swallow them?”_

_“Thirty-two natural pearls?” Yassen is sceptical._

_“Yeah?”_

_“Have you ever swallowed a pearl?”_

_Alex’s voice takes on a resigned note. “Are you going to tell me you have?”_

_“They’re calcium carbonate. They would dissolve in his stomach.”_

_“I see.” A pause while Alex considers this snippet of information. Yassen can almost hear the cogs of his brain turning._ _“Okay,” he says at last. “I think we’re on the same page now. But I still think it’s weird.”_

_“You have done weirder.”_

_“You know, I’m not sure I have.”_

The man who was Ivan reaches into his trouser pocket and brings out his knife. With it, he slices the package open, and pulls free his prize. The Delaney pearls. A necklace of thirty-two perfectly matched pearls fastened with a diamond clasp. Made for an Empress, worn by by film stars, and last seen on loan to the Palazzo Reale in Milan. “And where did you get these?” he enquires.

English’s eyes are shut, his chest is rising and falling rapidly and his hair is plastered to his forehead. But even awash in the afterglow of orgasm, he is still not stupid. It is too late for denial. His only chance now is complete and immediate honesty. “Andreas asked me to wear them while he took some pictures.”

Of course, he had. He can picture it well. For all that he is an idiot, Andreas does have an artist’s eye. The luminous pearls draped across the boy’s golden skin would have contrasted very nicely.

“Well, I suppose that saved you the trouble of breaking into the safe,” he observes. “And then what, he went to have a nap?”

“Sedative in his wine during dinner.” English admits, opening his eyes warily. His cock lies against his stomach, spent but still hard, the Viagra in his system doing its work. “He should come around in about three hours.”

The man who had been Ivan weighs the pearls in his hand, admiring their lustre. They are warm, smooth to the touch and surprisingly heavy. It is not solely due to his technique that the boy has been so responsive. The firm pressure inside of him must have been maddening. “It seems a lot of trouble to go to for a piece of jewellery. Has your country not stolen enough of Greek history?”

English does not bother to pretend ignorance. His beads, the hidden lock pick, the phone encryption software: they are not the tools of an opportunistic thief; they have the resources of a national agency behind them. “They don’t want the pearls,” he says huskily. “They were going to return them to the Greek authorities. It’s all been agreed.”

He folds the knife away and slips it back into his pocket. “Then why get involved at all? Why not let the Hellenic Police sort it out?”

“Bigger fish to fry,” says English. He looks down at his chest with a grimace and glances around for something to wipe himself down.

He passes over his own black polo shirt and waits patiently. “Such as?” he prompts, when the clean-up is done.

English hesitates, but he is not going anywhere without providing an answer. “They want Andreas taken out.”

A light goes on in his head. Yes, of course. He has been foolish not to see it before. The truth will do Andreas no good. He can claim the pearls have been stolen, that he was drugged and robbed by a clever thief, but his reputation will be ruined. Who will trust an intermediary who cannot be relied upon to hand back the goods? Rumours will fly that the pearls were not stolen but appropriated. Everyone who associates with Andreas will be tainted by that association. And a lot of people associate with Andreas. He is the link point between several key groups. The resulting turmoil will disrupt criminal activity across the eastern half of the Mediterranean. It will not work in weeks, or even months, but it will work. It is the long game.

“What will you do with it?” English asks, nodding towards the necklace. “It’s too well known to sell and the pearls aren’t worth as much individually. ”

“Me?” He wraps the necklace around one wrist, admiring the pearls’ lustre. They are pretty things, he will grant. Gems do not interest him as a rule. They are simply chemical accidents. He can appreciate a jeweller’s skill in cutting and setting the stones but an equal level of skill goes into forging a perfectly balanced knife and it provides something useful at the end of the process. Pearls, though, are different. They are grown, not mined. Each one is unique, imperfect and therefore interesting. But the boy is correct: the bulk of the necklace’s value lies in the fact that the pearls are a matched set, and in the history that goes with it, rather than the value of the individual parts. Their disappearance has been embarrassing to several highly placed individuals in the Greek and Italian Governments. Their reappearance in due course and through the right intermediaries can be used to gain strategic advantage for his organisation. Strategic advantage of the type money cannot always buy. The Greeks will regain one of their national treasures. The Italians can claim to have solved the crime. It is what politicians like to call a triple win. Although perhaps not for Andreas.

Still the boy does not need to know any of this, and it will be better for his health if he remains in the dark. “I don’t want them. My employer’s want them. What they do with them is their concern.”

“If they want them that badly, why haven’t you taken them yourself?” English nods towards the bank of monitors. “You’re in charge of security; you must be able to bypass it.”

“I don’t touch Andreas’s things,” he says simply. Any successful break-in will always raise suspicion about inside assistance. But in these circumstances, when the culprit is apparent, when the victim has voluntarily invited him into their rooms, then who will look elsewhere for the thief? He has not been employed to steal the pearls. His employers have any number of contractors who could do that. He is a specialist. He has been employed to make the manner of their theft invisible, leaving no link at all to the true perpetrator. And when the uproar has died down, and when the finger of blame has been firmly pointed at Andreas’s own negligence, then Ivan Anatolyevich Sorokin will evaporate away as if he never existed. Which, of course, he never has.

English frowns, not following. “But you’re fine with someone else taking them?”

“You can install the best security system in the world. But if Andreas is going to keep shooting off his mouth at parties and inviting young men to his rooms, then what can I do? You can’t protect against stupid.”

Understanding dawns in English’s eyes. “You’ve been waiting for someone to do your dirty work.”

“It was only a matter of time.” Andreas’s taste for handsome young men was the obvious flaw in the system. Sooner or later it was inevitable someone would try to exploit it. Indeed, there have been a number of previous young men arrive at the villa, who perhaps had had similar aims. But English has been the only one he has not been able to scare off. The only one who will make a credible scape goat.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Long enough,” he says dryly.

“You must have been bored out of your skull.”

The man who was called Ivan shrugs. It’s a hazard of his job.

There’s a long pause. The music is still playing and a warm salt breeze blows in through the window. His time in Greece is coming to an end and he finds he will miss it. It is a very peaceful night.

“So,” English says eventually. “What now?”

“Now?”

The boy gives a rueful twist of his mouth. “You’ve got what you wanted. You’ve won the game. What happens now?”

“Oh, well.” He rises to place the pearls into his desk drawer for safekeeping, alongside the condom packets and the Grach. He considers both items thoughtfully then closes the drawer and returns to the bed. “I have some thoughts about that.”


	10. Departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished, finally, hoorah! Thanks for all the comments.

He doesn’t have to explain himself further, the boy is very adept at reading his meaning. His chin lifts defiantly. “I want the pearls back first,” he says.

He is really not in any place to bargain, sprawled on the bed with his cock still more than half hard as he is. But you have to admire his nerve.

“I don’t think so, puppy,” he says as he climbs back onto the bunk and settles over him, letting the boy feel the heat of his body and judge his intent. English’s eyes widen and he conceals a smile. For all his bravado, the boy is as skittish as a young doe in rutting season. “What’s the matter? Have I worn you out already?”

English avoids his eyes. “You’re a bad man,” he mutters.

“Yes,” he admits sliding a hand down the boy’s body. “But I think you already knew that. I think that’s not such a problem for you.”

Sure enough, at his touch English stirs, and perhaps he is flattering himself, but he does not think it is only the Viagra which is causing him to push so hotly and so insistently into his grasp. He presses his mouth to the salt skin of the boy’s neck, tracing down to the dip of his collarbone, where the pulse beats rapidly against his skin. Keeping one hand wrapped in English’s hair, with the other he skims over his ribs, tracing the starburst of scars which runs across them, then down to his stomach, and back to his chest, where he feels the boy’s nipple harden against his palm.

“That’s good,” he murmurs. “Now, let me give you something better.”

 

_Yassen has dropped his voice over the preceding minutes, now it is only the most intimate whisper, which Alex will have to press his ear close to the receiver to hear._

Moving swiftly, he takes one of the sachets of lubricant from his back pocket, then kneels on the bed and unbuttons his trousers pushing them down around his thighs. It is a work of a few seconds to slick himself up and then he is scooping up English’s leg with his arm and entering into him, letting the weight of his body do the work. He is already slick and open and easing inside him feels like the easiest, most natural thing in the world, but the shock of pleasure which runs through his body still causes his eyes to open wide in surprise. Is this what sex feels like? He remembers the tightness of muscles clenching around him but he had forgotten, somehow, how hot, how velvety soft. He rolls his hips experimentally and feels English move beneath him in instinctive response. All the small hairs along his spine stand up, in a long slow shiver which runs from his coccyx to the nape of his neck. He barely recognises the sound which emerges from his throat. It is low. It is appreciative. It is pleased. Sex and death are two very different things. Sometimes it takes him a little while to set aside his work and focus on the sensations flooding his body, but not today. Today he is primed. He is ready. And sex is…

It’s…

It’s…

_“It’s what?”_

_Yassen hesitates. He has hit all at once upon the limitations of language. How to describe what sex is like? It’s heat and pressure enfolding his cock yes, but it’s far more than those things. It’s his hand wrapped in Alex’s hair and his nose pressed into the little hollow beneath his ear. It’s Alex’s scent in his lungs and salt on his lips. It’s a warm belly pressed against his so there’s no space between them. And it’s feeling his heartbeat echoed and magnified in another’s body. It’s warmth and skin contact from his head to his ankles. It’s intimacy. And it’s life._

_But how to explain all of that without Alex scoffing?_

_“It’s nice,” he says._

_“Nice?” Alex repeats flatly. “You’ve made me wait seven weeks to tell me it’s nice?_

_“Yes.” How else to describe what it’s like to spend years immersed in death, only to be suddenly, dazzlingly, surrounded by life? “It’s_ very _nice,” he amends._

_“I don’t believe this,” Alex complains._

_Reluctantly Yassen concedes he may have a point. He takes a breath and tries again._

It’s fingers gripping his hips. And it’s nails digging into his skin. And it is urgent. And it is animal. Giving English what he wants. Giving him what he needs. And English is driving up to meet his thrusts, like he cannot get enough. Like he wants it harder and faster and more. And then without warning, their gazes connect with a jolt that feels like recognition. He doesn’t know what English sees in his eyes, but for him it’s enough and he’s coming. And feeling a wet heat against his belly he realises that he is not alone and that English is too.

 

_“And what then?”_

_“Then?” Yassen asks. He is feeling a little distracted. There is a picture book in his bedroom which he likes to look at sometimes. He thinks he would like to look at it later._

_“Yeah, you can’t just leave it there.”_

Sex is a complicated thing, even for people in his profession. Maybe especially for them. You think it’s going to be a casual fuck to let off some steam but when you are with someone, inside them, it isn’t always as simple as that. There are things you can do to maintain boundaries. Rules you can follow. You don’t kiss. You don’t have sex face to face. And afterwards you get up, you wash their stink from your skin, you dress and you leave. You don’t lie in each other’s arms basking in the afterglow. You certainly don’t do that. Because hormones are powerful things and they will screw you over if they can. Before you know it you will be developing feelings. And then your problems have really begun.

After a few minutes English stretches and yawns. “Can I have my necklace back now?”

“No,” he says but indulgently. He is experiencing an unfamiliar sensation. It is a desire to remain close. He wants to press his face into the boy’s neck and sleep for a thousand years.

English bats him lightly on the shoulder. “Not the pearls. The other necklace.”

He doesn’t answer at once. English smells of both of them now and that is right and as it should be. For a few minutes he lets himself daydream. Foolish schoolboy dreams. He will disable the cameras and shoot the dogs. They will drive to the marina and steal Andreas’s boat. He will be Ivan again and the boy will be English and they will sail away together into the sunset. The boy will sunbathe on the deck, or perhaps read or swim, and Ivan will sail and fish. In the evening, he will prepare a meal which they will eat together. Good, simple food – grilled fish, tomatoes and cucumbers, and crumbled feta sprinkled with olive oil and lemon juice, and crunchy flakes of salt. They will spend the night in each other’s arms and in the morning when they wake they will make love beneath the dawn sky.

 

_“‘Make love?’” says Alex, humour creeping along the edges of his words._

_At times, he reminds Yassen very much of John Rider. Although John had laughed more than his son does. But then, John Rider had had a loving wife and a living sibling, while neither Alex nor Yassen have either of those things. So perhaps John Rider had simply had more to laugh about than they do._

_“Fuck, if you prefer.”_

_“Make love’s okay, I guess,” says Alex magnanimously. “It’s old school.”_

_‘Old school?’ Yassen doesn’t even know what that means._

 

But the dreams last only a few minutes. There’s no way they can work. The Aegean is not infinite, the Turkish and Greek navies patrol the waves, the waters are fished out and the tomatoes and cucumbers all wrapped up in plastic and sold in supermarkets across the EU. Their idyll will be over before it has even begun. But it is a nice dream. A better dream, perhaps, than living out his years in peaceful semi-retirement. And perhaps something can be salvaged from it.

Not ungently, he disentangles them, then gets up and pulls up his trousers. “Get dressed,” he says as he buttons his fly. “It’s time for you to leave here.”

English sits up on the bunk. “You’re letting me go?” he says. His cheek is creased from the pillow and his hair is dishevelled. Disbelief wars with hope in his dark eyes. For all his brave words, he has not been at all sure he would leave the villa alive. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he has been so responsive. Danger can be an aphrodisiac for some.

The man who was Ivan shrugs. Probably the boy is right and he should put a bullet through his head and make an end of it. But he is in a mellow mood. The two of them are just foot soldiers in a much bigger war. He has the pearls, which is what his employer wants; Andreas does not have the pearls, which is what English’s employers want. The details are for the two of them to work out. “I need CCTV of you leaving, for this to work properly.”

Confusion is replaced by understanding. “The perfect cover story,” English says. He rises and begins dressing quickly and efficiently, underwear, trousers then shirt.

“Yes.” He reaches into his pocket and English freezes, expecting perhaps to see the knife again, only to find he is being handed the bead necklace.

“Thanks,” he says, tying the broken cord at the nape of his neck.

He shrugs. “The footage has to match.”

English touches the beads at his throat. “Will that be a problem?”

“Not a problem.” It is not a difficult edit to make and his office door is, not accidentally, in a camera blackspot which makes the task easier. The initial footage of English leaving Andreas’s apartment simply needs to be moved seventy minutes later so it aligns with the footage which will show him emerging from the blackspot and continuing toward the stairs. Everything else can stay as it is. Andreas is unconscious and will have no idea what time the boy left, and Yiannis will attest to finding Ivan alone in his room. There will be no reason to suspect any irregularities. “Which way will you go?”

“Out the back.”

He nods. It is what he would do. It’s past midnight but the moon is up and the stars are bright. Slip over the side wall and into the pine forest. Then down to the beach. Take one of the fishing boats and vanish, as if into thin air.

“Assuming I can get past the dogs,” English adds.

“Nothing on here for the dogs?” He indicates the necklace.

“No,” English says. “We weren’t expecting them.” He gives a rueful grimace. “They were a nice surprise.”

“Huh.” He considers. “How fast can you run?”

“Pretty fast,” says English. He sits on the bunk and pulls on his trainers, lacing them up carefully. “Maybe not fast enough to outpace a pack of Rottweilers, though.”

“Then think of something,” he advises. “And make it look good for the cameras.” He can edit the video footage, he can bluff Yiannis, but the dogs are English’s problem. This one he will have to work out for himself.

English looks around the room. “Do you have a gun?”

“Not that I’m going to give you,” he says, amused once more by the boy’s audacity.

The boy’s eyes alight on the fridge. “How about the ouzo, can I have that?”

“I don’t think a drink is going to help you,” he says. But he brings out the bottle anyway.

“And a pillowcase?”

“Be my guest.”

He watches with interest as the boy strips the case from the pillow and douses it with ouzo. “Dogs go mad for the scent of aniseed,” he explains. “Hopefully it will distract them for a few seconds.”

“Really?” He is not sure he would want to risk his own skin on that hope, but the ouzo is certainly potent enough for it to be worth a try.

English folds the pillowcase into a square and tucks it into the waistband of his trousers. With his shirt pulled down, it is invisible, though a strong smell of aniseed permeates the room. “Well,” he says, when he is ready. “Wish me luck.”

“If you’re good, you don’t need to be lucky,” says the man who had been Ivan.

“Words to live by,” English says dryly and without further conversation he slips out of the door.

He gives him a few seconds to get clear, then takes the Grach from the drawer and goes to stand by the window. It’s a clear night. The moon and stars are reflected in perfect symmetry in the flat surface of the swimming pool. As he watches, English emerges silently onto the terrace and begins to move stealthily across the courtyard. He is halfway to the side wall when three silent shadows race around the corner of the villa. Seeing them, he takes off into a sprint. He is fast, very fast, but the dogs are fast too, and are snapping at his heels in an instant. Something white falls onto the flagstones. The dogs jink towards it, the foremost seizing it in its jaws and English darts the last few metres towards the wall. He jumps, his trainers gripping the rough mortar and propelling him upward. His reaching hands find the top and then he is pulling himself up and over while the dogs leap futilely, half a metre below. For an instant he is poised, straddled across the parapet. Does he glance back towards the villa? It is hard to tell. A second later and he is gone.

The man who had been Ivan returns to sit at his desk. In a few minutes, Lukas will call him and tell him the dogs have been disturbed and they will go together and investigate, but before then he has work to do. He replaces the Grach in its drawer then opens up his laptop and calls up the media files.

 

_“And then what?_

_“And then what nothing. The end.”_

_“The end? Really?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Do they see each other again?”_

_“No, they never see each other again.”_

_A grumble of disagreement. “I think they see each other again. Maybe in passing on the street, or something.”_

_“They would ignore each other if they did. It is far too risky.”_

_“This isn’t a very happy story,” Alex comments._

_Yassen holds his peace. It is a far happier story in his view than the alternative, which is that having had his pleasure, Ivan would have kept the pearls, put a bullet through the boy’s head and dumped his body over the sea wall._

_“And what about Constantine?” Alex wants to know._

_“What about him?”_

_“He’s got a wife and family. If jobs are hard to come by then he’s going to be out of work if things go badly for Andreas.”_

_“Constantine isn’t real.” Constantine is just a name he’d picked because it is a popular Greek name. The same as for George. But Alex makes a rude noise. He knows Constantine isn’t real but he still wants to know what happened to him. “Constantine becomes an electrician,” he extemporises. “He sets up in business with his uncle. He is good with practical things and there are lots of jobs on the island. It’s better paid than working for Andreas. And better hours also.”_

_“And George?”_

_He’d had a feeling this might be coming. “George is also fine. He was planning to retire anyway. He has saved up a nest egg. He moves down to the village and opens up a café with the two cleaning women.”_

_“Okay,” says Alex somewhat mollified._

_“And Lukas ends up working for Dimitris,” he adds before he can be asked. “Dimitris’s wife is very happy about that. But I don’t know what happens to Yiannis. I think maybe he ends up giving evidence in a court case against Andreas. And after that he has to move somewhere very far away.”_

_“Where?”_

_“Argentina,” he says, picking the first place he can think of which is a long way from Greece. The lack of argument tells him that this is an acceptable answer. “So,” he continues, “that was the story. Did you like it?”_

_“It certainly kept me guessing,” Alex says. “Did you like it?”_

_“Me?” It had not occurred to him to consider this aspect. There could have been more kissing. And in retrospect, it might have been wise to make more of the pearls earlier. But it had been difficult to keep track of all the different threads while also dealing with Alex’s interruptions. Telling stories is more complicated than he had assumed. On the whole though, he thinks it was a credible first attempt. “Yes.”_

_“Well, that’s good.”_

_“Yes.”_

_A long silence stretches between them. Now that the story is over they have become tongue-tied again. It is always the way. There is so much they can’t talk about. Continents lie between them, in more ways than one._

_“I’d better go to bed,” Alex says at last. “It’s getting late.”_

_“Yes.” It is late. He has been talking a long time. Still neither of them seems to be in a hurry to end the call._

_“I still think they’d see each other again,” Alex adds._

_“They don’t see each other again. It is far too risky.”_

_A disgruntled sigh. “I guess.”_

_“But,” Yassen adds delicately, “if you want to, you can see me.”_

_For a long time, Alex says nothing. Yassen lets him think. There is no point in pushing now. “And wouldn’t_ that _be risky too?” he says at last_

_Yassen shrugs. He had given up worrying excessively about risks in respect of Alex Rider when he had decided to get shot in the chest. “Yes. But manageable with precautions.”_

_“Where are you?”_

_Being prepared to take risks, however, is not the same as abandoning safeguards entirely. “Next week, I can be in Europe,” he says, avoiding the question._

_“Where in Europe?”_

_“Germany.”_

_“Term ends next Friday,” says Alex._

_“Yes.” He knows._

_“Where in Germany?”_

_He considers. He can be anywhere in Germany. He could, if he chose, be in London and in Alex’s bed within the next eight hours. But he has been chasing long enough, it is time for Alex to do a little of the legwork now. “Frankfurt.”_

_A pause. “If I was to get the early Eurostar,” Alex begins. He has been looking up things on his phone._

_“Yes,” says Yassen. He knows._

_“If-” Alex stresses._

_Yassen waits._

_“If I was to get the early Eurostar, I could change in Paris and be there by mid-afternoon.”_

_“You could,” Yassen agrees._

_“So, I could see you next week. By this time next week.”_

_“That is something to think about,” Yassen says. Tension runs through his muscles like a steel wire but his voice remains low and calm. This is the tricky part. Like landing a fish: too eager and you will scare them away, not eager enough and they will get bored and give up the lure. A little tug every now and then, to keep their interest, but nothing too forceful. Everything very relaxed._

_“Yeah,” says Alex at last. “Alright. I’ll think about it. Will you let me know where you are?”_

_“I can do that.” Encrypted software. Old fashioned key drops. There are ways._

_“So, do that.”_

_“All right, I will,” says Yassen. “Until next week then.” And he hangs up, smiling._


End file.
